Love Like Fools
by vampirealchemist13
Summary: Tony's dealing with the aftermath of the wormhole; Steve's realizing he might be falling in love with Tony. Will Tony's fear of ruining anything he truly cares about end them before they can really begin? (Rating may change from T to M during last chapter) *Inspired by a fanvid of the same name by ann2who* **Currently un-betaed and only cursory edits made**
1. Trying to Be a Hero

A/N: Hello! It's been awhile since I've written on FF, and I've never written a Stony fic, though I've gotten very into reading them lately. I recently saw an amazing fanvid on Youtube (look up: Love Like Fools Stony ann2who...AMAZING) and it inspired this. Literally, I listened to this song for nearly 8 hours while at work and almost couldn't focus on my work because this story demanded to be written.

I managed 3 chapters in 1 night, so I expect it to be done by the end of the week, but I'm famous for choking at the end of my fics so I'm sorry in advance if that happens.

 _Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now. Eventual mentions of suicide in later chapters.

 _Warning_ : In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Those hardest to love need it most**

 **I watched our bodies turn to ghosts**

 **Such good friends, it has to end it always does**

 **That's the way life is**

 **Do we take that risk?**

STONY*STONY*STONY

 _"You might not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."_ Tony would have been lying to say it hadn't stung just a little. Not much—after all, people had said far worse about him—but this was the man Howard had basically said Tony would never compare to.

His father had spent half of his life amassing his fortune by building weapons and the other half looking for Steve. Tony had kind of just accepted it at some point that there just wasn't enough room for him in that equation. And maybe he wasn't fine with it at first, but he made himself be fine with it.

And then he made it so he'd never have to be _fine_ with it again. Rather than be disappointed every time someone didn't love him, wouldn't it be so much easier if he just made it so hard for people to love him that they physically couldn't? At least then he knew it was coming.

Tony had made himself into someone who was difficult—some would say impossible—to love or even like. But he'd also made himself someone people _needed._ They needed Iron Man and his superhero tendencies. They needed Tony Stark's mind. Maybe they didn't need Tony Stark, but they needed enough about him that it balanced.

So maybe he had kind of hoped he and Steve Rogers could at least get along. He'd read the man's file while simultaneously becoming an expert in thermonuclear astrophysics and had been irked to admit that, even before meeting the guy, he could understand Howard's obsession. The guy was perfect. Perfectly annoying.

He was the son Howard always wanted and never got. Obedient, well-liked. Add a little bit of genius to the mix and it would be like Howard had created a masterpiece.

Instead, he'd gotten Tony.

And maybe, _maybe_ , Tony's resentment of Howard had colored his first impressions of the Captain, but by the end of the fight with the Chitauri, he'd gotten over it. Because he realized that Howard had always been so enamored with and determined to find Captain America, but Tony had gotten to know _Steve_. And Steve was hopelessly idyllic and frustrating (but Tony was, too—frustrating, that is, not idyllic), but he was so honest and open and innocent.

He didn't have a malicious bone in his body. Even the stuff he'd said in the lab on the Valiant hadn't been malice; he was just speaking the truth.

And _that_ was what had hurt. Because everything special about Steve was _enhanced_ by what had been in the bottle; it didn't come from it. Everything special about Tony had either come from Howard or from Tony's desire to be completely different from him, to fix the wrongs his company had committed.

So now, the day after the battle with the Chitauri, as they all stood around the Plaza to send Thor, Loki, and the Tesseract back to Asgard, Tony came to an uncomfortable realization. For the first time in his life—with the exception of Pepper and Rhodey—he wanted to be friends with people. He wanted people to like him, to need Tony for _Tony—_ not his inventions or his suits or his brain.

And he wasn't really sure how to do that.

STONY*STONY*STONY

"Stark—I can't believe I'm saying this after how this all started but…it was an honor working with you." Steve extended his hand to take Tony's with a firm shake and a small grin. He probably should have given Fury another ten dollars; he didn't think he'd see the day where he got along with Howard's son off the battle field—especially after the argument in the lab.

The memory of the incident still made him uncomfortable. He hadn't exactly lied—everything he said had been his exact thoughts while watching the footage of Iron Man fight and Stark's interviews. But everything he'd said had been said with the intention of causing pain, and for someone who hated bullies, he sure felt like one after he'd had time to think about it more.

Not that Tony had been particularly innocent in the argument; he'd gotten quite a few good insults in. But that he'd been able to push Steve like that still baffled the super-soldier. Sure, he'd been hot-headed pre-serum—never knowing how to pick his fights and getting beat up all the time never stopped him from getting in a scrap.

But once he became Captain America? Image aside, it was more the idea that he could win any fight he got into that got him to learn to keep his cool. But something about Tony Stark…something about him blew Steve Rogers' control out the window.

And then they'd fought alongside each other and Steve realized just how wrong he was and it made him sick. He'd watched hours of footage on each of the Avengers while waiting for the team to assemble aboard the Valiant, and watching Iron Man—while impressive—was the worst because it had always been followed by some smarmy sarcastic interview from a cocky, conceited Tony Stark.

It never occurred to him while watching the footage that the Tony Stark presented to the public, the one that was always on camera, was a front. Because the Tony Stark that was Iron Man, the one he'd fought beside just hours before? He'd been prepared to make the sacrifice play without a second thought. Even as Steve tried to talk him out of it—or at least rethink it—he'd silenced their comm and committed. _That_ was Iron Man.

So why didn't he show that face to the public?

It had surprised Steve that he had felt nearly the same sense of helpless panic and pain as when he'd lost Bucky when Stark was lying lifeless on the pavement, the power source of the suit, flickering and growing dim. It wasn't the same, of course—he'd barely known Stark and most of that time had been spent in immense dislike of the genius. But in the back of his mind, he'd been preparing to try and get as drunk as his super-soldier body would allow before the Hulk seemingly willed Stark back to life.

"Captain." He gave a responding firm shake and the beginnings of a smile in the form of a twitch at the side of his mouth. "Swing by the tower anytime you want to spar. I'll even put on the suit." At this, Tony gave him the probably-patented smirk he'd seen many times watching the man's interviews and sighed. Public-Tony was already back in place.

"Take care of yourself, Tony." The man looked a little shocked at the sentiment before giving a tight nod and hopping into his car beside Dr. Banner, who had promised to explore the R&D department of Stark Tower for awhile before relocating to another desolate and remote area of the world.

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review :)**


	2. Part of Me

_Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now. Eventual mentions of suicide in later chapters.

 _Warning:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **And so it all boils down to this**

 **We've got our aim, but we might miss**

 **We are too fragile just to guess**

* * *

A month after the Avengers first battle saw a Tony Stark that was a shell of the one who had flown into the wormhole. Insomnia plagued him in the most horrifying of ways and his old habit of being awake 72 straight hours only when he was engrossed in a new invention became the norm. Only when he was so exhausted that his entire body rebelled could he drop onto the couch in his lab and close his eyes.

Not that he wasn't plagued by nightmares when he did manage to sleep; his body and brain were just so exhausted that the nightmares couldn't wake him.

He just remembered the cold, the dark, the endless silence…moments after entering space, the suit had shut down. No, the suit hadn't shut down…his arc reactor had stopped working. With no source of power to draw from, the suit had lost power and JARVIS had disappeared. Torn between which would kill him first—the dark, cold crush of space or the shrapnel—it had taken him only a moment to acknowledge that with JARVIS gone, he was going to die alone.

But hadn't he always expected that?

No…he'd thought he'd at least have JARVIS. But here, on the other side of a wormhole with an active nuke, he was going to die surrounding by thousands of Chitauri and the silence of space.

Tony acknowledged that his reaction to surviving the experience was rather counter-intuitive. After all, if he was having nightmares of dying alone in the crushing silence of space, wouldn't the proper response be to immerse himself in the world so he didn't feel so alone?

But no, he isolated himself more. He spent time holed up in his lab, alternating between making enough tech to keep SI and Pepper happy and altering his suits. Even Bruce had given up on trying to engage him in some kind of social interaction, although the scientist had chosen to stay at Stark-soon-to-be-Avengers Tower (it had seemed like fate that the 'A' was the only letter to survive the battle with Loki, and he had to admit it looked much better this way).

So he occasionally ate whatever takeout managed to find itself on his work table—he suspected Pepper or Bruce, but never actually saw or took notice of either of them in the lab—and slept when his body demanded it.

He occasionally wondered what the press was saying about him these days. When he left this long, they usually started making things up; what would the story be this time? Rehab? Private island? That had been his favorite…

"Sir, my security protocols are being over-ridden." He scowled; only one organization had the power to do that. He had found the subroutine they'd thought they'd surreptitiously added and edited it. He removed anything that could pull information from JARVIS, but allowed them to still override the security protocols. Much as it irritated him to have uninvited guests (particularly SHIELD guests), he'd been ignoring his phone and other methods of communication and acknowledged SHIELD probably needed to make sure they could still get to him if Avengers business came up.

It didn't mean he had to like it when Romanov or some other agent walked in with consulting files or some other nonsense like that.

"Official consulting hours are…"

"Stark." He didn't look up.

"Why, Widow, what happened to your beautiful dulcet tones?"

"Agent Romanov is on a mission, and I'm not here on consulting business."

"If you're not here on consulting business, then I can't see what you could need from me. You're not speaking very urgently, so I assume there's no threat requiring the attention of Iron Man. And yet, you're bothering me in my lab. Very rude."

"Well, Stark, seeing as you don't seem inclined to leave the lab very often, it was that or drag you out." Tony quirked an eyebrow at the spy before dropping his attention back to the shoulder piece of a new suit he was working with.

"Nothing usually stops you from doing that. But seriously, Fury, you're killing some great suit time, so what is it you need so desperately you're invading my SHIELD-free zone?"

"I want you to get Rogers to live here." Okay, that got his attention. He put the shoulder piece down and actually made an effort to keep eye contact with Fury.

"You want me to ask Rogers to be my roommate? Why?"

"Rogers won't ask. He'll do it if I order him to—the man will always follow orders—but he'll be uncomfortable the entire time and that'll defeat the purpose."

"Care to share the purpose?"

"The Council would prefer Rogers stays on his own; they think an out-of-time Captain America is easier to control."

"Technically they're right."

"I know. I have enough easily controlled soldiers, Stark. That's not what the Avengers are supposed to be." Tony couldn't help it; he let out a snort.

"So you want Steve to live with me so he can pick up my attitude and blatant disregard for authority?"

"I'm hoping the two of you will…balance each other out. Maybe you'll teach him to disregard authority a little more—or at least not get all apologetic when he does—and you'll learn how to follow orders every now and again."

"Oh, come on, Nick—I thought you liked it when I made your life difficult."

"Stark, you are a Grade-A pain in my ass, but at least you get your shit taken care of. There are worse things." Tony pretended to swoon, going so far as to bring the back of his hand to his forehead.

"Why, Nick, I do declare…that may be the sweetest thing you've ever said to me!"

"Will you do it, Stark?" He pretended to think about it for a moment, even though both he and Fury already knew the answer.

"I suppose I could spend some time teaching Captain America to rebel. But you know he won't just move here because I ask."

"Then use some of that goddamn charm, Stark."

"Aye, aye!"

"And get some sleep, Stark. You look like shit; even your charm ain't enough to convince anyone of anything looking as bad as you."

"Great, thanks, Nick." The spy gave a curt nod and swept from the room.

What had he just done? Agreed to leave the lab for the first time for something other than a shower in a month for what…Steve Rogers? _For the team. Because someone needs something from Tony Stark besides getting my shit together._

"J, how long have I been awake?"

"65 hours, Sir."

"And what time is it?"

"One a.m., Sir." He glanced back at the door Fury had just walked out of.

"What the hell was Fury doing here at one in the goddamn morning?" JARVIS didn't answer; the AI was quite able to distinguish between rhetorical and real questions, although sometimes he chose to answer both. Tony hadn't realized sarcasm was programmable, but he supposed the AI had picked it up from it's creator.

"Alright, well, I should be able to work until tomorrow night, fall asleep, and be well-rested enough to deal with Rogers, right?"

"History would suggest there is a 23% chance that this will end poorly."

"Which means the chance that it doesn't is high enough to risk it. Thanks, J." And he started picking at the shoulder piece with renewed vigor.

STONY*STONY*STONY

The doors to his lab slid open a few hours later. JARVIS didn't say anything, which meant it was Bruce, Rhodey, or Pepper.

"Tony."

"Pepper! I haven't gotten to the cell phone thing yet, but I'll get there—I promise! I just need to finish a few things with…"

"Tony."

"Yeah, Pep?" He finally looked up from his suit to see Pepper—perfect, pristine Pepper—looking at him with…ugh, pity. He despised that look. "What, Pep? I'm fine!"

"No, Tony, you're not! You spend day after day in here, working on your suits…you've built five in the last three weeks alone!" She gestured to the corner of the room that had Marks 36, 37, 38, 39, and 41…40 had not gone well, but he was determined to get back to it. After 42, of course.

"Hey, I went through three in the fight with Loki alone! I have to be prepared! Besides…they're not just suits—you know that."

"That's just it, Tony. They _are_. I don't know why you've convinced yourself that they're the only thing that matter, or why you can't seem to remember the world outside your lab exists, but—"

"I remember, Pep. That's the problem." He spoke in a low tone, but he knew she heard him. He walked over to DUM-E to remove the DUNCE cap as he continued, unwilling to make eye contact. Tony knew that Pepper wouldn't leave until she was either satisfied with his answers or so fed up that she couldn't think of something to say. The latter was always more likely. "The nightmares are so much worse. "I can't sleep. And my suits…they're a part of me." _So maybe if they're strong, it means I am, too._

"They're machines. A distraction." He gave a short, derisive snort, crossing his arms defensively.

"And what's everything else? You, the Avengers, SI…how is any of that more or less of a distraction?"

"I don't mean your nightmares, Tony. I mean your _life._ The company, your team, Rhodey and me…we're part of your life. We want to help you, but we can't do it unless you talk to us. And you can't talk to us unless you leave this damn lab!"

"Not true…that's what phones are for!" Not having slept in over seventy hours meant this conversation was likely going to end with him getting defensively snippy and either saying something to hurt Pepper's feelings or set her off. The faster made the second option the reality, the faster he avoided the first. "It's better when I'm down here—I can help SI, help the team, and I don't have to worry about someone else having to deal with my nightmares. What more do you _want_ from me, Pepper?"

"I want you to remember the goddamn rest of us before you start thinking the world is better without you being a part of it!" She turned on her heel and he watched as she stormed out of the lab, a picture of angry perfection in the pristine white pencil skirt and suit jacket. Even her hair looked angry as she rounded the corner to get to the elevator.

 _I am remembering the rest of you,_ he thought miserably. _That's why it's better for me to be down here working through this crap on my own. Iron Man saved me before; he can do it again._

STONY*STONY*STONY

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review :)**


	3. Waiting on the Big Man

_Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now. Eventual mentions of suicide in later chapters.

 _Warning:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **And I've been in this place before**

 **Fine as we are but we want more**

 **That's human nature at it's best**

 **What if we ruin it all and we love like fools**

 **And all we have we lose?**

 **I don't want you to go but I want you so**

 **So tell me what we choose**

* * *

He tried to do things as close to the way he used to do them without being ridiculous. Of course, he used a washing machine and dryer instead of a clothesline and modern conveniences that were easily intuitive like that. But he'd rather read a real book than those fancy tablets, he liked listening to the radio, and he cooked a lot (although that was more because it reminded him of his mother.

He liked to take the train, close his eyes, and pretend he was still in 1940. He could still see that cityscape—the one he'd sketched what felt like a million times—in his mind if he concentrated.

But then he'd open his eyes and it would be bigger and completely foreign and more imposing than he remembered and it made him regret taking the train. Until he did it again.

It was a dangerous cycle.

In the past month, he'd visited every museum in the city—he'd visited some of the art twice—and tried several coffee shops until he found his favorite. It had nothing to do with the view of Stark Tower it afforded him.

He'd thought a lot about the team since the Chitauri. He was sure Widow and Hawkeye were off on some covert mission, Thor was back on Asgard with Loki and the rest of his people, and Tony and Bruce were "science-bro-ing" at Stark Tower…whatever that meant. They were Tony's words.

And then there was him. The perfect soldier, a man out of time…alone. Of course, Tony had invited him to come spar at the tower, but he was just being polite. After all, they'd only barely started getting on after the billionaire had nearly died. And Stark was probably extremely busy; in fact, he hadn't even heard the man's name on the news more than to say he hadn't been seen.

"Waiting on the big man?" He looked up from the hundredth sketch he'd made of the building with it's lone letter still clinging to the top; clearly, repairs were still in the works if the man's name hadn't even gone back up. A pretty blonde waitress was refilling his coffee and offering him a sweet smile.

He smiled back politely; he'd gotten plenty of offers since being unfrozen, but after realizing he'd never be able to truly connect with someone from this time (especially if he didn't reveal his true identity), he'd gotten acceptably adept at awkwardly turning those sweet smiles down.

"Ma'am?"

"Iron Man." He heard a wistful sigh at the end of the name and suppressed a smile; Tony sure did have an effect on people he'd never met. "People eat here to try and catch a glimpse of him flying in. Although I'm sorry to say he hasn't been around lately, so you're probably out of luck today." _And every other day we don't get called in_ , he thought to himself as he pulled a bill out of his pocket.

"Maybe next time," he offered. Her hand froze halfway to taking the bill, though, as she stared at something behind him. Steve was about to ask if she was alright before he heard a familiar voice and felt a firm hand on his shoulder that made him smile.

"Maybe this time, although sorry to disappoint with the lack of flying. Two more please." He held up two fingers and a classic Stark-smile to the waitress and waited until she awkwardly turned away to pull out the chair across from Steve and drop into it. "That is, if you think you can put up with me long enough to drink another cup?" His mouth switched from the smirk to the smile, so Steve knew he was being sarcastic, but his eyes…his eyes seemed devoid of any emotion.

"Stark, it's nice to see you."

"Yeah, I stop here every now and again. They have the best coffee in town; just don't tell Pepper that." He gave a conspirational wink, as though he'd forgotten the fact that Steve had never actually met the infamous Pepper Potts. "So Rogers, how's life in the 21st century treating you? Have you discovered the wonders of cell phones and internet porn yet?"

Steve was supremely glad a new cup of coffee hadn't arrived yet; Tony would probably be wearing it if he had.

"Tony, why would you…"

"Oh, calm down; I'm just kidding. Well," he gave a thoughtful pause before continuing, "kind of. Both of those things are a pretty good representation of the world nowadays, give or take a bit. Sorry if I offended you." His smirk implied anything but.

Part of Steve was surprised that Tony's tone—which had, only a month ago, set him off on the man—made him relax and feel accepted by the man. The other part was still trying to suppress the uncomfortable blush rising to his face. He had discovered this century's blatant promiscuity; it was one of the things he was still having issues adjusting to.

"No, it's fine. I still do a lot of things the way I remember; I guess I'm trying to hold onto some semblance of normalcy in a world that's just…not normal?" He phrased it like a question, hoping he managed to convey what he was trying to say. After all, to Tony, all of this wasn't just normal—it was mundane.

Steve suddenly found himself being heavily scrutinized and couldn't think of anything to do but sit frozen. Even the arrival of the new coffee didn't distract the man.

"Stark?" Silence. "Tony." Recognition filtered back in and Tony seemed to realize he'd just been staring at Steve in public for…quite awhile actually.

"Sorry, it's just…don't take this the wrong way, but…how much sleep have you gotten in the last month?" Steve stiffened briefly; even though he relaxed almost instantly after, he knew Tony had probably caught it.

"I slept for seventy years; I think I'm all caught up." He'd said as much to Fury before their last mission.

"It doesn't work that way, Rogers. Answer the question." Steve broke eye contact, choosing to pick up his pencil and continue detailing the 'A' on the Tower as he spoke.

"When I have to."

"The ice?" The pencil dropped to the concrete as he looked back at Tony and realized why that haunted, empty, _frightened_ look in Tony's eyes was so familiar. He saw it every morning in the mirror. Steve gave a brief nod, debating how much to say, then realizing it was useless as every word tumbled out without permission anyway.

"I have trouble sleeping. I close my eyes, and I'm back in the ice. I know I shouldn't remember—I mean, everyone says _"science says"_ I was unconscious—but I do. The cold, the dark, the…"

"The quiet," Tony interjected quietly. "Knowing it's how you might spend your last moments—submerged in silence."

"The portal?" A different look crossed over the billionaire's face before settling into a gentle _fake_ smile.

"Among other things. You know, the tower's huge. There's plenty of space, plenty of other insomniacs; you're welcome to stay. You know what they say—misery loves company." Tony was babbling; was he…nervous? Did he actually want Steve to come stay? Were they…friends?

Or was this just the polite offer of one teammate to another?

"Thanks, Tony, but I don't want to be an inconvenience, and I do have an apartment."

"Come on, Rogers, you'll be doing me a favor. You're exactly what Pepper says I need—someone to get me out of the lab who can talk to me about things that don't make me want to go back to the lab. And if Pepper's happy, I'm happy because she's not trying to set fire to the lab as a method to get me out." Steve gave a small laugh and almost agreed until something registered.

"Tony, have you been in your lab since the battle?" The inventor shrugged.

"Close to it. I've been working on suits and stuff for SI and I just never find a good enough reason to leave the lab." Steve's heart stuttered and he didn't know why. Well, maybe he did.

After all, Tony had left the lab for him. Ok, that was assuming a bit much—Tony did say he liked this coffee shop. So he left the lab for coffee, but he was inviting Steve to stay at the Tower to keep himself out of the lab, meaning he _would_ lave the lab for the super-soldier.

Maybe the man-out-of-time wasn't as alone as he'd thought.

"When should I move my stuff?"

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review :)**


	4. Hard to Get a Read

**A/N:** This is a really long one, but it's how it worked. In case you hadn't noticed (or hadn't watched the video), each chapter title is taken from one of the lines spoken during the video. A lot of this chapter was my own (up until the Malibu incident) so it took awhile to get to a part where I could put the line in. Most chapters probably won't be this long.

 _Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the basic idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now. Eventual mentions of attempted suicide in later chapters.

 _Warning:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **Friends, I watched us as we changed**

 **The feelings in my headspace rearranged**

* * *

Tony found himself out of the lab at least once very sleep cycle after Steve moved to the tower. That in itself was strange. What floored Tony, though it took him awhile to realize it, was that Steve was actually seeking him out in between Tony's limited moments out of the lab.

It took about two weeks for Tony to catch the pattern. He would've caught it faster, but he wasn't really operating at capacity nowadays.

It started simply. Now, instead of just reminding him of how long it had been since he last slept, JARVIS had also taken to telling him how long it had been since he'd talked with Steve. After fifty hours, he usually tried to wind down on whatever he was working with and make his way to wherever Steve was.

Ninety percent of the time, it was the gym. Figured.

They didn't usually spend long together. Steve gave Tony updates on life outside the tower; he was still trying to check out museums and different things around the city. Tony told some bad jokes and tried to help Steve make sense of the things he was reporting on.

Steve had already acquired himself a nice collection of history books, but Tony, after grumbling about Steve's apprehension of "unnecessary modern devices", made sure to get him something on every important event he'd missed…in hard copy and electronically.

"You know I make this stuff for a living, right Rogers?" He'd said it multiple times, always in jest, and Steve would just shrug and say that between everything he'd seen on the Valiant and interacting with JARVIS, he was still on overload.

And then there were the times he found Steve in the kitchen staring between a cup of coffee and a shot of whatever he'd grabbed from Tony's bar that night.

"Neither one works," he'd muttered the first time Tony had caught him, about a week after Steve had moved in. "And if neither works, I'm still trying to decide if it's an addiction for me to feel like I need it."

And that was how they each slowly started opening up about the ice, the wormhole, and the nightmares. It didn't really help—he still couldn't sleep—but he also didn't dread talking about it like he thought he would.

Pepper still came by about once a week to update him on SI and nag him a bit, but it seemed half-hearted. And Bruce occasionally came to the kitchen and caught up over a cup of coffee before going back to his research. Tony got the feeling the other two Avengers had hung out more often than just these moments—Steve had taken to calling him Bruce instead of 'Doctor Banner' increasingly often—but he didn't mind. Having two people who knew and understood his bad habits meant they weren't alone.

Like Tony…or so he'd thought.

Until Steve started spending time in the lab. Tony didn't even notice at first; he'd been tinkering and he'd turned to grab a different size screwdriver only to find Steve on a stool in a corner, sketching Butterfingers. Only when he realized the metallic sounds had stopped had he looked up to catch Tony staring. He'd given a ridiculous two-fingered salute and gone back to sketching.

And then it was a pattern. Steve didn't try to make Tony talk or eat; he just sat quietly with a book or a pencil and a relaxed smile on his face. Tony would have suspected brain damage if the serum didn't make it nearly impossible.

Two weeks into this routine, Steve spoke for the first time while in the lab.

"Let's go get coffee." Without looking up from the thruster he was working on, Tony pointed at the coffee machine. "Nah, I meant that spiffy place down the street."

Tony snorted at the word _spiffy_ , but his fingers did slow down a bit.

"Maybe later? I'm really close on this…"

"How about in an hour then? I haven't sketched the tower in a while and every time I try to go, that waitress comes and talks to me and I feel rude ignoring her."

"So you want someone you can ignore?" He sent Steve a quick smile so the super-soldier knew he was kidding.

"No, but if I sketch while we talk, you don't seem so bothered." That's because Tony understood the concept of multitasking; everyone else thought not having his complete attention meant they didn't have any of it.

He looked down at the thruster, back at Steve, and then the thruster again.

"Ok—an hour." Steve smiled and got up, apparently believing if Steve wasn't in the room, Tony would work faster.

Actually, finishing the thruster had only taken about fifteen more minutes, but Tony was very aware that he was sporting what Pepper called the "lab look"—there was probably more of him covered with oil and grease than not right now. And while he figured Steve wouldn't mind, he also knew Pepper's leniency with him not being seen in public would end if he was seen in public looking like this.

So he took a shower, cleaned up his goatee a bit, and opened his closet to sort through the hundreds of suits he hadn't missed at all in his two months of almost-isolation.

There wasn't much about life outside the tower he missed, to be honest. Besides flying. But flying was plagued by an underlying fear of the sky opening up to swallow him, so that lessened that desire a fair bit.

But he much preferred his lab time that was occasionally broken by the sounds of Steve's pencil or their kitchen conversations or their sparring time or…

"Holy sh…JARVIS?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"Are Steve and I friends?"

"It would appear so, Sir." THE AI almost sounded proud. He took a moment to decide against wearing a tie. Then…

"Well, fuck."

STONY*STONY*STONY

"You know, I've never actually seen any of your stuff, Rogers. Which is weird, because I feel like you've sketched just about everything in my lab." Steve flushed, but his hand didn't falter as he continued to outline the cityscape, the Tower very prominent at the forefront—just like everything about Tony…larger than life, even hiding away as he had been.

"I don't usually show people," he mumbled. It was true—even Peggy had only glimpsed some of his more satirical doodles over his shoulder.

"I don't see why not—they're good," Tony commented, looking again from the sketch to the scene. More interested in looking at Steve's work than Steve, the man had chosen the seat next to him, kicking his feet up onto a spare chair.

The waitress in question had stopped by a few times to refill their cups, but—as Steve predicted—didn't stick around to make small talk because he wasn't alone. Or maybe because his company was Tony Stark.

"When do you think the Tower will be done with repairs?" Steve asked suddenly, realizing he didn't have a completed picture yet.

"Hm? Oh, it already is. Only really had to fix the penthouse level—the rest was miraculously untouched for most of the battle."

"But the letters…"

"Yeah, I kind of liked it better like that. I told Pep to officially release the rename in a month or so. You've been living in Avengers Tower for a month now." He pushed his sunglasses up and turned to look at Steve. "Sorry it's so ugly."

Steve recognized the teasing tone and shrugged. "It's not so bad."

"Yeah, well," Tony dropped his sunglasses again and let his head fall back, closing his eyes. "Half of us already live there. Figured 'might as well'." Steve didn't respond to that, just kept sketching. About ten minutes later, he heard a light snore from beside him and almost jumped. Tony was…asleep? He wondered what hour this was on Tony's usual three day cycle…at least 48, he knew.

He'd finished his sketch and his coffee a while ago, but still held his pencil lightly, dragging a line across the new blank sheet every now and again. It didn't take him long to realize what his new subject was.

STONY*STONY*STONY

When Tony finally opened his eyes, the sky was darkening. His breath gave a slight hitch before he realized it wasn't a wormhole; it was just getting late.

He and Steve had come out around one, which meant he'd been asleep for nearly three hours without a nightmare…in _public._ Had Steve just left him alone when he'd realized Tony was asleep?

A quick glance to his left confirmed he was being an idiot; of course Steve hadn't just left. He also didn't seem to have noticed that Tony was awake, which gave Tony time to glance at what Steve was working on. It wasn't the tower anymore; he must have been long done with that.

It was him. Sunglasses sliding off his nose, slouched down in a dinky coffee shop chair, mouth half-open in a snore, it was Tony in the first peaceful sleep he'd had since the Chitauri. Steve had some serious talent.

When the artist in question turned to take another look at his subject, though, he seemed startled.

"Tony! You're awake…um…" Tony smiled, pushing the sunglasses on top of his head; he didn't really need them at this time of day.

"Chill out, soldier boy—I already saw it. At least you got me from my good side," he said with a wink.

"Are you admitting you have a bad side?" Steve asked, relief flooding across his face that Tony hadn't been mad that Steve had drawn him during his nap as he turned back to his work.

Tony didn't answer…not out loud anyway. _Of course I have a bad side, Steve. I'm all bad side; how have you not seen that yet?_

Instead of answering, he asked, "Can I see the one of the tower?" He got a smile and a shake of the head.

"Not yet; there's something I want to add first."

STONY*STONY*STONY

And so added another part of their ritual; every now and again, Steve managed to get Tony to leave the tower for coffee, lunch, or just a walk. They always ended up sitting on a bench or on a patio somewhere with Steve's sketchpad open and Tony content to sit and watch the artist at work. He never fell asleep again, which disappointed Steve, but he did make snarky comments as he watched people wander by. They didn't usually talk too much during these sessions; they preferred the closed doors of the towers if they were going to talk night terrors and the laid-back atmosphere in the lab or the gym if they were going to talk about mundane things like what new device Steve wanted to know about that day.

These moments were more about getting Tony outside and relaxed. Steve knew the tower reminded Tony of bad things. It reminded him of good things, too, but staring at the suits or the common area of the tower stressed him out—Steve could see it in his face. So by getting them out of the tower, Steve got more subjects to sketch and Tony got to relax without even realizing it.

Or maybe he did realize it, but he never said anything, so Steve took that to mean he was okay with it.

He'd been living with Tony for almost three months when he got a call from Fury about a mission. _Only three days, Romanov needs back-up, ship in the mid-Atlantic…_

He'd be leaving in a few hours and he didn't want to ruin the last hour or so of the precious time Tony could relax, but he also didn't want to just drop it on him.

 _Why do I even think he'll care so much? I have to go, and it's not like he hasn't gone three days without even noticing me sitting in the lab anyway. It'll be fine._ So why was he so reluctant to say anything?

"Tony, Fury called this morning; I'm leaving later tonight to back Natasha up on a mission for three days." The billionaire seemed to freeze for a moment, but fell into a kind of forced relaxed pose and slid a smirk on.

"I was wondering if super-spy was ever going to call you back in," he said, twisting a bit to stretch after sitting awkwardly on the bench for the last hour. To anyone else, he'd seem completely normal; to Steve, who had spent much of the last few months with him, Tony seemed tense…agitated. _Does he actually care I'll be gone for three days? Or is he just afraid to be alone again?_ "Pepper's flying back to Malibu tonight; I suppose now's as good a time as any to go back and pack up some stuff in my lab back there and ship it here. Hopefully You hasn't destroyed anything on his own over there." You, Steve had learned, was like Butterfingers and Dum-E and just hadn't made the trip over yet.

He could tell Tony was rambling, trying to make Steve think he was acting completely normal. In doing so, he just made it all the more obvious.

"So I'll have more to sketch when I get back?" He asked, trying to talk Tony down to his more relaxed state again.

"Absolutely. I think you've done every suit nearly twice at this point; we've got to get you some new material!" And just like that, Tony was ok again. As soon as Steve had (essentially) promised he'd come back, Tony was fine. It felt nice to be needed, and he rather enjoyed the time he got to spend with Tony in and out of the tower, but it worried him at the same time. In his desperation to connect with someone and his happiness at finding out he and Tony were actually great friends, had he perhaps hurt Tony? Made him reliant on the super-soldier being around?

He'd seen it happen during his time in the war. Men would lose their friends, members of their platoon. Some never opened back up, afraid of losing another person close to them. Others clung to someone new, desperate to fill something inside them that had broken.

 _I'll find out when I get home; if Tony's slipped back into his old habits, I might have to be more careful._ He wanted to stay friends with Tony, but not if it was making things worse.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Tony managed to keep himself pretty well-occupied in Malibu. He hadn't left much behind—You was really the only one that mattered—but there was other stuff around the mansion he hadn't realized he'd missed. Small things—silly gifts from Pepper, that ugly painting he'd insisted on hanging when he was dying of palladium, things that had made the mansion feel like a home.

But now New York was home. If he was completely honest, living on the ocean had lost a large part of it's appeal after the cave incident—being drowned over and over made it really difficult to appreciate the beauty of the ocean when he was constantly thinking of it suffocating him in the middle of the night. Logically, he knew his home was structurally sound—he'd put the designs together and run all the tests himself. Mentally? He'd had more than one nightmare about being trapped under the debris as it crumbled into the ocean.

"Sir, your flight leaves in twelve hours." So it was day three already. He looked up from the box he'd been packing (sure, he could've made You do the packing, but then it would have been done too soon and he'd have had nothing to keep him occupied).

"Thanks, J. Call Pepper and let her know I'll pick her up? She's probably got Happy driving her."

"Will do, S—" Tony's head shot up. The AI had cut off—JARVIS never cut off unless Tony interrupted him, and even then he usually finished his sentence afterwards.

"J?" No response. "JARVIS!"

"Sorry, Stark. We had to lock him out for a bit." Goddamn spies messing with his goddamn technology.

"Fury, I don't care what you need; you do not shut down JARVIS!"

"He's not shut down; he's just not inhabiting this particular house right now." Tony raised an eyebrow.

"Is this the part where you murder me and blame it on my enemies?"

"Don't tempt me, Stark."

"But I'm just so g—" He didn't get to finish because he felt a pinprick in his neck and the world started to turn dark. For a terrifying moment, he was back on the couch with Obadiah hovering over him, removing the reactor from his chest.

"Don't worry, Stark; you're safe." The words sounded slurred, and he tried to move his mouth to respond, but he fell sideways onto whoever had just knocked him out and then the world went dark.

STONY*STONY*STONY

When the world wasn't black anymore, it was suddenly too white. Like hospital-sterilized white. At least it didn't smell overly-sterilized. The light plus the blood rushing to his head when he tried to sit up nearly made him vomit; the smell of bleach would have turned _nearly_ into _definitely._

"Ugh, am I dead?"

"Well actually, Stark, kind of." Oh, yeah—Fury's minion had knocked him out. Fucking Fury and his shitty super-spies.

"Ya see, Stark Romanov's mission has taken an unpleasant turn…" He'd been glaring at Fury, but with those last two words, his blood ran cold.

"Are they…?" Fury waved a hand, effectively calming him from having a complete panic attack, although the worry didn't completely dissipate until he spoke again.

"Rogers is about an hour away from the tower, and Agent Romanov landed in California about two hours ago."

"So, the part about me being dead and you knocking me out? I still have both my kidneys, right?"

"Agent Romanov is in the process of infiltrating an arms dealer right now and she needs to pass a test." Tony rolled his eyes; were people really so uncreative?

"She has to kill me?" Fury nodded. "So you're going to fake my death and—what? I'm just going to have to seclude myself in the tower for a few days like I did for three months anyway? So are we already in New York, then?"

"Here's the short version, Stark, and try not to be too big of a pain in my ass about it. We're going to blow up your mansion. To the press, it'll look like there was an accident in the lab. To Romanov's targets, it'll look like she covered up her work. Obviously, your remains aren't going to be found; you'll be presumed dead.

"You're going to need to stay that way for at least one week, probably closer to two, and, in that time, everyone needs to believe you're dead. Got it?" Despite only having one eye, Fury did the lean-in-and-stare-to-be-super-intimidating thing very well. " _Everyone._ Whoever the dealers are working for, they've got a grudge against you; if you're not dead, there's a good chance he orders Romanov to go after the people you care about. Worse, he may send someone else. Miss Potts doesn't know, Colonel Rhodey doesn't know, the rest of the Avengers don't know. Your circle of trust is Romanov, Agent Hill, and me."

"Agent Hill?"

"Who do you think knocked your ass out back at the mansion?" Tony brought his hand up to rub his head and gave Fury a sour glare.

"Is there a reason I had to get my ass knocked out in the first place? Why couldn't you just explain this shit to me there and have me get in the car like a normal human."

"Mostly because Agent Hill wanted to knock you out." Fucking SHIELD.

"JARVIS is going to know I'm not dead." Fury tossed him his phone; of course they'd taken it. Probably just to prove they could.

"Luckily, I don't have to be too concerned about an AI showing emotion. And seeing as you could probably contact the damn thing with two tin cans and some string—"

"One tin can."

"—I figure it's best to make sure he's in on it to keep Doctor Banner and Captain Rogers from finding out where you really are." And with that, Fury turned to leave the room. He paused at the door and turned to fix Tony with one last "don't-fuck-up" look. "We brought some things to keep you occupied," he said with a nod to the back of the room, where an acceptable but meager workshop was set up, a couch and door to a bathroom off to the side. Even You was sitting in the corner, making small clicks and whirs as it woke up. If he wasn't so pissed off at the spy, Tony might've thanked him.

"Two weeks, Stark. Then you can go home."

STONY*STONY*STONY

God, it was good to be home. Steve toed off his shoes and kicked them into the closet, already beelining for the lab. Tony was supposed to have landed a few hours before Steve, so he figured the genius was already back at work. _He probably hasn't eaten in awhile,_ Steve realized, turning to go back to the kitchen and put together a small plate of sandwiches.

Bruce wandered into the kitchen, heading straight for the coffee as he usually did.

"How was the mission, Steve?" Steve gave a shrug.

"Nothing exciting; probably could've dressed anyone up in my suit and gotten the same effect, but I suppose it was good to see Agent Romanov again. Have you…" He was cut off by the ringing of his cell phone. "Pepper?" Why would she be calling Steve? They'd only spoken twice before.

"Steve! It…it's T-t-tony…He's…h-he's…" His heart froze. He thought Bruce might've called his name, but it didn't register.

"Tony's what, Pepper? What's wrong?" She let out a loud sob, and kept trying to choke out words, but nothing coherent would come.

"H-he's…"

"Dead." Bruce had apparently flipped on the news as soon as Pepper's hysterical voice came on the line and Steve had gone sheet-white.

Steve could still hear her in one ear, but his eyes were fixed on the screen. The debris from the mansion floating in the Pacific, the words scrolling along the bottom. Nothing really registered except those three words… _Stark Presumed Dead._

"Jarvis, is it…"

"I'm sorry, Doctor Banner, but I'm picking up no signs of Sir. I cannot confirm he is dead, but at this time, I am unable to confirm that he is alive."

"But…there's a chance," Steve breathed.

"Captain, I estimate a 12% chance that Sir survived."

STONY*STONY*STONY

"JARVIS, report?" Why did he do this to himself?

"Things are not good, Sir. Miss Potts has still been running SI but looking far more down-trodden than usual. Doctor Banner has not left his lab, even for coffee or other nourishment. A SHIELD agent has been stopping by to ensure he has everything required to avoid an unpleasant situation. Captain Rogers has been only to the gym or your lab." He had asked JARVIS every day for eight days, and always got a relatively similar answer and it made him want to dial the tower every time…until he remembered Fury's warning.

Normally, he'd say damn Fury. He could protect the people he cared about. He didn't need Romanov or Fury or fucking SHIELD. So what was the issue now? Had Fury been right? Had Steve's penchant for following orders found it's way to Tony?

STONY*STONY*STONY

"Stupid, stupid, stupid…" Steve was beginning to wish Tony hadn't fortified the punching bag for Steve's strength; he really wanted to break something. If he wasn't in the gym trying to destroy something, he was sitting in Tony's lab, trying to imagine the billionaire on the stool in front of him, yelling at Dum-E. He'd even had JARVIS play Tony's music once or twice, but it just never felt right.

To make it worse, the nightmares kept coming. There were actually more of them, because now he was dreaming of the ice, of Bucky's death, _and_ of Tony's.

If he hadn't left on that stupid mission, Tony wouldn't have stupidly gone to Malibu, and he wouldn't have made a stupid mistake that got his stupid lab blown up and Steve wouldn't be trying to beat up a punching bag feeling so…

"Stupid."

"You're not all that bad, Rogers. Oblivious, maybe, but I wouldn't call you stupid." He landed one more punch before straightening up and turning to face Natasha.

"Agent Romanov."

"You've been ignoring Fury's missions; he's sent three."

"The last time I took a mission, Stark died. I think I'll take a break this time." Natasha raised an eyebrow.

"How does Stark making a dumb mistake in his lab all the way in Malibu have to do with our mission?" She gestured to the mat to their right and took up a defensive position, waiting to see if Steve would join her. On the one hand, he was worried he might hurt her. On the other, he really wanted to hit something that would hit back.

"He wouldn't have…been in Mali…bu if I hadn't…gone." The conversation got a bit stunted as he ducked or absorbed a hit while speaking, but he managed to keep going while keeping a tight control on how much strength he put into a punch.

"Stark does what he wants, regardless of anyone else. He would've eventually gone back to Malibu. And with the amount of stuff he likes to tinker with…do you know how many times he's blown up a lab?" Steve had seen a few times; JARVIS had apparently thought he was being helpful.

"He never blew anything up while I was in there."

"He's careful when other people are around. You haven't noticed Stark gets reckless with his own safety when it doesn't impact anyone else?"

"It always impacts someone else! It impacts the people who care about him! We don't want him to kill himself in a stupid lab accident or by flying a bomb into a wormhole." Natasha straightened up and fixed him with a sharp look.

"The fact that he always comes out on the other side has led Stark to developing some very self-destructive tendencies, which had a lot to grow on considering his father. I'm not sure if he does it consciously, but the man seems intent on pushing until he finds out his limit and then operating at that limit for as long as possible. It's part of the reason I had to initially give a negative assessment for him joining the Avengers Initiative." Steve was shocked; Tony had been rejected initially? So what had changed that got him onto the heli-carrier that day?

Natasha continued. "And the people that care about him _let_ him. They scold and needle, but they never stick around—not when it gets to the point that they don't want to handle it anymore."

"Agent Romanov, is…is Tony still alive? You're talking about him like he is, and…" She gave a "super spy smile" as Tony would have said and made her way to the door, stopping a few steps from the threshold without turning around to say two sentences that sent new life through Steve…like he was being injected with the serum all over again.

"I tend not to believe a pronouncement of death until I see a body. I mean, look at you."

STONY*STONY*STONY

 _Day ten,_ he though miserably.

"JARVIS, report?"

"Sir, I must insist…"

"JARVIS, it's only a few more days; what's the difference? Report."

"Miss Potts and Doctor Banner are unchanged." He noticed the deliberate absence of Steve's name. "As for Captain Rogers, it seems Agent Romanov has given him hope, Sir. I am unsure of whether Director Fury is aware of this or not."

"What do you mean h…she _told_ him? Steve knows? What…what's he doing?"

"Not quite, Sir. She merely implied that the lack of a body should be a cause for hope, not despair. It seems he has boarded a plane to Malibu, Sir."

 _"What?!"_

"Stark! When I told you to break Rogers of his "soldier first" thinking, I didn't mean turn him into you!" Fury had come bursting through the door only moments later and Tony had half expected to see Steve trailing behind him. But no—if he'd just boarded a plane, it would still be a few hours. And that was assuming Fury actually brought him here…wherever here was.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Nick!"

"I'm sure your damn AI already told you about your new roommate being a contender for number one pain in my ass."

"Oh, come on, Nick. At worst, he's a thorn in your side." Tony couldn't help it; knowing Steve knew he was alive made him actually _feel_ alive again.

"Whatever, Stark. You're just lucky that by the time he gets here, Romanov's mission will be completely over and you won't have to worry about Rogers ruining your cover. Hill is picking him up at the airport in five hours; you'll be free by dinner." The spy turned to leave, but before he was completely out of sight, Tony called to him.

"Fury…thanks for keeping them safe." The man didn't say anything—Tony hadn't expected him to—but that was fine. But so help him, if Fury ever pulled this shit again…

STONY*STONY*STONY

SHIELD. Of course it was SHIELD. That's why Natasha had seemed so unaffected by Tony's…death. How could he have believed Tony would make a death-inducing explosion in his lab? He wouldn't have done that, knowing Steve would be waiting for him just a few hours later in New York.

He made it two steps into the base before his eyes locked on the familiar spiked hair and relaxed stance. _Tony_. He hadn't said the man's name out loud, but Tony's posture stiffened and he turned with an uncertain look on his face. In three long strides, he reached the shorter man and wrapped his arms around his shoulders, careful not to hug him too tight, but wanting— _needing_ —to reaffirm that Tony was alive and in front of him.

"Steve…breathing…need to do it." Steve knew the man was joking, but also recognized it for what it was—he wasn't sure how to deal with Steve's very public display of emotion with anything but sarcasm—so he backed off. Tony was fine. "So soldier boy, what do you say we get something to eat before we hop on a plane and surprise everyone back in New York?"

"I could eat," he laughed, all of the worry and tension and anger draining away after only a few minutes in Tony's presence. His concern from before he left—about Tony being too dependent on him—was completely forgotten. So what if he was? Steve was dependent on Tony, too.

"You can always eat," Tony retorted, giving Fury and Hill a nod before walking towards the door like he wasn't walking into a world that thought he'd been dead for nearly two weeks. "Burgers or pizza?"

"Whatever," Steve responded. Whatever Tony wanted or needed, as long as it meant he was alive and walking alongside Steve.

They ended up at a run down bar that either still or already had it's Christmas lights up—it was that point in the year where it really could'v been either. Steve take care of ordering at the bar and Tony grabbed a table far enough away from the pool table that they wouldn't be bothered too often, keeping the hood of his sweatshirt up.

They were halfway through their food when Tony spoke up. "You know, Steve, I'm usually pretty good at reading people but I gotta say—it's hard to get a read on you," he said, wiping his face with a napkin.

"What do you mean, Tony?" Steve's mom had always said he was an open book; it was part of the reason he was always getting into fights as kid. That and his size, anyway.

"I mean that JARVIS told me you spent ten days holed up in the gym or my lab and turned down SHIELD missions. That kind of seems more like something I'd do. So either I'm completely off about the kind of guy you are, or I'm a really bad influence on you." He didn't look too disappointed about the last part.

"Maybe a little of both," Steve admitted. "I blamed myself; I thought if I hadn't gone on the mission, you wouldn't have been in Malibu and everything would've been fine. I couldn't bring myself to go on another mission knowing that." He trailed off at the end, suddenly very self-conscious of what he was saying. Losing Tony, even for ten days, had made him realize how much he valued having the man in his life.

Steve's head snapped up when he heard Tony snort.

"Blaming yourself for something completely out of your control—I am a bad influence on you." And just like that, with a sarcastic comment and a laugh from Tony, Steve's world snapped back into place with a sudden realization.

He was falling for Tony. And he was happy about it.

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review! :)**


	5. Keep Yourself Safe

**A/N:** So the story has kind of deviated from the video in my mind (and now in the actual writing), but I'm still keeping to the quotes as chapters. So the Christmas scene and the battle don't happen in the video, but this is what it's morphed to in my head so...yeah. I still credit the video for the inspiration though, and you should ALL DEFINITELY STILL WATCH IT A LOT!

 _Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now. Eventual mentions of suicide in later chapters.

 _Warning:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **I want you more than I've wanted anyone**

 **Isn't that dangerous?**

* * *

With Natasha's mission over, yet another permanent addition was made to the Tower, and Clint joined only a few weeks later (although he alternated between the Tower and somewhere else for a week at a time). And so Avengers Tower actually became their home and, short one God of Thunder, the team was together.

Of course, more people in the tower meant more people to interact with…for those who wanted interaction. Tony was less willing to open up to Steve about his nightmares with one of the super spies in the kitchen—mostly because he knew, team or not, they still reported anything important back to Fury and he was not interested in that—and after Natasha dropped him to the mat in less than two minutes on three separate occasions in the gym, he was very disinterested in that as well.

He didn't completely regress, though; Steve, old-fashioned as he was, insisted on a weekly dinner that Tony always made a point to attend. Sometimes JARVIS would tell him the team had asked if he wanted to watch a movie with them—after realizing they couldn't get into the lab (or shouldn't) to get his attention, they had started relying on JARVIS or Steve to pass the message.

Steve still came down to the lab to visit, though not as much as he used to; apparently even super spies were more sociable than two scientists, each a fuse in their own right. The invitations to go for coffee or a walk in the park didn't lessen, though, for which Tony was eternally grateful.

"Christmas is coming up." Tony grunted, already knowing he wasn't going to like this particular conversation; the holidays made him pretty sour. "Do you have some fancy party to go to for your company?"

"Usually, yes. Pepper hasn't tried to bother me about it yet, though." Actually, the party was three days away—she was cutting it unusually close this year. Or maybe she thought he'd learned by now that she would always win the argument ending with him attending the damn thing so she didn't bother starting the argument. Knowing her, it was an extremely likely case.

"Oh. So you probably won't be around for Christmas then?" Tony peeked over and saw Steve had stopped sketching the snow-covered park across the street; they were safely inside the warmth of their _spiffy_ coffeeshop.

"Well, the party is always the weekend before Christmas so it's actually in a few days. Why…did you want to come?" Steve wrinkled his nose and Tony couldn't help the single bark of laughter; he looked about as appalled as Tony felt when attending the galas.

"Not really my scene," he said with a meaningful sidelong glance at Tony before going back to twirling his pencil, no longer focused on the paper. "No, I was hoping we could do Christmas dinner at the Tower…the five of us. I already asked the others, but…it won't be the same if you're not there. You know, it being your tower and all." Oh goodness, was Steve _blushing_?

"It's the team's tower, Steve. And if you all really think you can put up with me, I can be there, but I'm warning you—I'm…not a holiday person." Howard's complete dismissal of him and his lack of other family had seen to that. And he'd never ask Pepper or Rhodey to leave their own families or subject their families to his sour attitude during such a happy-for-everyone-else time of the year.

"Let me guess…a regular Ebenezer Scrooge?" The blush was gone and Steve was fixing his all-american smile on Tony now. Apparently, all Steve needed to be happy this holiday season was the Avengers plus Tony's shitty holiday mood. That smile probably wouldn't be there this time next week…

STONY*STONY*STONY

"Bruce, I need your help." The man in question was standing on top of a ladder to adjust something very high up on whatever he was working on, and glanced down at Steve from his precarious position.

"I'll be down in a second, Steve. Then you can tell me why you look like I just went green."

"Are you sure that's safe? And if you fall, will you…" Bruce laughed, starting to back his way down the ladder.

"Is that why you were worried? I can handle a fall, Steve. It's explosions and bullets the other guy doesn't like." He tossed the screwdriver onto a table and picked up a rag, cleaning something from his fingers and peering at Steve over the top of his glasses. "No, you've seemed nervous since before you came in here, so that wasn't what had you all wound up. What's up?"

"Tony's gone until the day of Christmas Eve in Malibu with Pepper for the company party." Bruce nodded.

"Nothing's going to happen, you know. We won't get another SHIELD-induced phone call. For starters, I doubt the world would fall for that again." The official story had been that, after the explosion, Tony had suffered from memory loss and managed to wander around, unseen and unnoticed, in California for nearly two weeks before remembering who he was and coming back to New York. The popularly-believed story was that he'd gotten hammered and wandered off and enjoyed the mess he'd made; that had made Steve ridiculously angry on the billionaire's behalf.

Steve shook his head to clear the awful thoughts from his head, focusing on the matter at hand.

"No, it's…I want to decorate the tower for Christmas. Well," he paused, reassessing his intended mission, "the inside of the living area at the very least. The outside could get tricky considering the best man for the job is the one we're trying to surprise."

Bruce gave him a nod of agreement, but then a frown passed over his face and Steve got nervous. Was this not how people did Christmas anymore? It was his first one since the ice after all.

"Steve, when Tony said he'd join us for Christmas Eve, he did explain what he's like on Christmas, right?"

"He said he's not usually in a great mood." Bruce gave a sarcastic chuckle and shook his head.

"There's an understatement. I'm just saying don't get your hopes up too high with trying to make Christmas enjoyable for everyone. You might have to settle for four out of five. You'll have to ask him; it's not my place to explain," he continued, raising a hand to stop Steve from asking the question that already had his mouth open. "When I first moved in here, Tony and I had a bonding conversation over…bad life experiences," he added, to try and explain why he knew the little he did.

"Ok, but that doesn't mean I can't try. But I do need your help."

So Bruce grabbed a set of car keys—Tony had given Bruce and Steve explicit permission (and Natasha and Clint kind of _assumed_ permission) to drive anything in his garage, but they both usually kept to the more low-key vehicles. Never mind that Tony could probably buy another of nearly any of them…or build one…if they managed to get into an accident.

Living in the tower and Tony paying for the food that usually magically managed to appear in the fridge every week like clockwork meant Steve didn't have a lot of things to buy and spend the money that SHIELD gave him. It seemed fitting that the money that he would've had to spend on an apartment or food was going to (try to) make a happier holiday for the man who made it so he didn't have to.

Their first stop was to a tree garden outside the city limits where they paid to have the absolute largest tree in the lot delivered to the Tower at six that evening, which Bruce said would give them enough time to buy everything they needed.

And then they proceeded to buy hundreds of ornaments. They didn't buy them all at one store, either; Steve insisted that the tree could not match. So they stopped at nearly fifty stores and got ornaments that fit the team…including a pirate with an eyepatch. Steve felt a little bad for mocking the director, but consoled himself with he knowledge that it would make Tony laugh.

They also bought garland, strands of lights, fake snow, mistletoe, and did a little christmas present shopping—two birds, one stone, Bruce had reasoned.

As they shopped, Steve thought about his revelation from post-Malibu. _Falling_ for Tony had only gotten stronger over the last few weeks. Even spending less time alone than they had before (because of the presence of more people in the Tower) had only made the time they did spend together better. Steve still sat silently in Tony's lab every now and again and, even though they didn't talk as much about the nightmares, Tony seemed to be sleeping better—he'd certainly been sleeping more often, according to JARVIS.

And after finding out Tony was still alive, his own nightmares had all but vanished. It had taken him nearly three hours to realize that, even after being hit in the head with multiple snowballs by Tony (who had insisted on at least taking a walk after the first snowfall and then proceeded to pelt Steve with snow), he hadn't panicked at the cold. He still didn't like complete silence or darkness—that was part of the reason he spent time in Tony's lab, where he could be quiet without being surrounded by silence (and New York was never really _dark_ )—but Tony had made him forget about the cold.

How could he not fall for someone that made him so happy he forgot about everything that terrified him?

STONY*STONY*STONY

Tony knew, as soon as he touched down on the landing pad of the tower, that something was off. The lights, for starters. Everything in the common space was pitch black; if he hadn't seen the rest of the building looking completely normal when he flew in, he might've thought something was wrong with the arc reactor.

As his suit nearly finished it's removal process, he instructed JARVIS to leave one gauntlet on—just so he had a repulsor ready if something was _bad-wrong_ instead of just weird-wrong.

"I wouldn't suggest it, Sir." Tony raised an eyebrow; so the AI knew something and wasn't concerned. _Can't be too bad, then_ , he thought, leaving the suit completely behind and waiting for the glass door to slide completely open before cautiously stepping inside. He still hated the dark.

Luckily, it wasn't dark for long. As soon as he stepped inside, the lights raised as though there hadn't been anything wrong and he was at a loss for words. The tower looked… _festive_.

He knew what Christmas decorations were supposed to look like. Growing up, Howard and Maria had always had the mansion immaculately decorated and matching—like something out of a catalogue. But he'd seen the movies and the specials on TV…decorations were supposed to be a conglomeration of all the decorations people amassed over a lifetime, mixed and matched with the decorations of someone else to create something beautiful in its chaos.

Like the Tower.

There were millions of fairy lights everywhere, like whoever had put them up didn't have a concept of aesthetics when doing it—the goal was just as many as possible. There were white ones, red ones, flashing green ones, even a few strands with a soft blue that matched his reactor. And was that…yes, there were a few strands of lights hung over the bar with mini-cartoon versions of all the Avengers.

"Apparently saving New York means we have merchandise now," a voice mumbled from behind him. He turned to see Natasha, Clint, and Bruce leaning against the back of the couch, each in similar but different positions of relaxedness. Steve, on the other hand, was a few feet away from Tony and looking very tense and…fidgety. Captain America didn't fidget, goddammit.

But when Tony snuck a peek at Bruce and saw the _careful_ look, raised eyebrow, and pointed glance in Steve's direction, he understood. This had been Steve's idea and Bruce's expression made his thoughts very clear. _Don't fuck this up._

So he took his misgivings about the holiday—which had been slowly fading every time he saw a new strand of lights anyway—and smiled.

"You just always have to keep busy, don't you, Rogers?" Tony knew Steve caught his smirk and knew he was in the clear, and the fidgeting stopped. Then Tony spotted the _monster of a tree_ in the center of the room. "You missed a spot," he laughed. The rest of the place was decked in garlands, lights, and holiday decorations galore, but the tree was bare.

Steve, however, looked scandalized.

"You don't decorate the tree unless everyone can, Tony! We wouldn't have done it without you. We'd wait for Thor if we knew he was coming, but…" He shrugged and Tony got the idea.

'Well, I don't have any ornaments." Bruce let out a peal of laughter and Tony felt like he was missing something when he saw the matching super-spy smirks. Even Steve let the corner of his mouth pull up.

"Don't worry; we're covered."

STONY*STONY*STONY

"I don't know what you were so worried about, Bruce. Tony seems completely fine," Steve commented as they bustled around the kitchen, putting together a tray with hot chocolate, mini marshmallows, and some of the cookies Steve had miraculously found time to bake between all the shopping and decorating.

"When I was warning you, I thought you were going to do standard Christmas decorations; I didn't realize you were going to make the tower look like JARVIS vomited lights and fake greenery," Bruce chuckled, trying to sneak a cookie off the plate; Steve's warning glance turned to worry.

"So I did overdo it? I told you guys to tell me if I overdid it!" _Oh wow, I'm acting like Mom used to on Christmas…_ Steve didn't know if he should be comforted or terrified by that thought.

"To be honest, Steve, I think overdoing it is shocking him enough that he's enjoying it," Bruce said a little quieter as the two of them snuck a glance through the door to the common area where Clint was laughing as both Natasha and Tony tried to string popcorn garland. "That and the company."

The rest of the night went pretty well; Tony's forewarned 'Scrooge' mentality never made an appearance. They watched _It's a Wonderful Life_ , threw some of the popcorn that hadn't made it onto the strings, and finished decorating the tree. At about three minutes past midnight, it was agreed by Clint and Tony that it was officially Christmas Day and, therefore, they could exchange presents.

Afterwards, surrounded by paper and basking in the feeling of finally _belonging_ in this new world he'd woken up in, Steve noticed Tony's occasional glance in his direction before turning back to the conversation he was having with Clint and Bruce about the mechanics of—God help him—Santa's Sleigh. He looked…confused? Disappointed? And then Steve realized…Tony was disappointed he hadn't gotten a present from Steve. The super soldier repressed a snort—he'd gotten one, Tony just hadn't seen it yet.

"Natasha and I have a stop to make on Christmas Day, so we'll probably be gone before you all wake up. If food is made, though—particularly delicious Christmas-dinner-made-by-Steve food—I expect leftovers…Stark." Clint stood and stretched, looking pointedly in Tony's direction.

"Snooze you lose, Barton," Tony said with a nonchalant shrug. Steve could see through it, though—Tony was happy.

"I'll be back tomorrow night, too," Bruce said softly. "I figured since I'm back with civilization for a holiday and in proper control for once in my life, I should make a stop at my mom's retirement home and spend the day with her." The team smiled as one, happy that Bruce had finally—how had Tony put it?—started to strut instead of tip-toe. _Maybe being around Tony is building up Bruce's tolerance,_ he thought with a grin.

So as everyone said their 'good nights' and grabbed their piles of gifts—there was also still a small under the tree, ever package labeled _'Thor'_ —Steve and Tony were left sitting in the common room.

"So your Scrooge attitude was a bit tamer than I expected," Steve commented as nonchalantly as he could, unable to stop the smirk creeping past his lips.

"Your decorating skills baffled me; I was too shocked to be Scrooge-y," Tony replied, mocking Bruce's words from earlier (which he had either heard or just happened to coincidentally say the same thing). "Actually, it was everything. It felt…nice. To have a real Christmas with people I actually care about." And dammit, there was that pull in his chest when Tony said he cared about them…about _him._ "Although now I'm exhausted; five days in Malibu dealing with SI and snooty business people and then an entire evening with you rambunctious lot? I'm feeling old!"

"So I guess you don't want your last present, then?" And darn if Tony didn't just perk up at that. Steve couldn't contain the chuckle this time. "You're a child, Stark."

"Yeah? Well children get presents on Christmas so come on, Saint Steven!" Now Steve was nervous…what if Tony didn't like it?

"Come on—it's down in your lab." As they made their way to the elevator, Steve explained, "I figured once we had you in the common area, you wouldn't leave until I told you to come down, so I thought it'd be safe. Either way, JARVIS agreed to lock you out until I came down with you…unless it was an emergency of course!" He added at Tony's startled look.

"I'm just surprised you got JARVIS to agree to lock me out of my own lab!" Steve shrugged. He knew the AI was just that—artificial—but he got the sense that it liked him, and he felt kind of proud of that fact.

"Okay, close your eyes until I say so." Tony pouted, but did as he was told, and Steve prodded him forward slowly until he was standing at the back wall. "Ok, open." The ridiculously giddy expression on Tony's face morphed into utter disbelief. His mouth literally dropped open. "I don't think you've ever actually seen anything I've finished, and I know you haven't seen anything I've added color to, but this one just seemed like it had to be yours."

STONY*STONY*STONY

It was the Tower sketch that Steve had done the first time he'd asked him to go for coffee. Granted, it was bigger—Steve seemed to have taken his first one and re-sketched onto a much larger canvas—but Tony remembered watching him draw it until he'd taken his nap and he remembered every line. It was the same one.

Only he had added more. On the street in front of the Tower, fully assembled as they had been the day of the Chitauri battle, was the team. He and the Captain in their suits, Thor in full regalia, and Bruce looking very green, plus the super spy twins, looking ready for anything the world threw at them.

Above the tower, seemingly floating in the sky, was the team again—without their suits, masks, or…greenness. It was just a head and shoulder for each of them, but they all looked happy and they all looked like…

"Family," Tony whispered, not even aware he'd said it out loud until Steve glanced at him.

The whole thing was done in vibrant, spectacular colors, and a scrawled _Steve_ sat in the bottom right corner.

"Steve, I…" He opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of something good enough to say, but all that came out was, "thank you." From the look on Steve's face, it was the right thing to say.

"Merry Christmas, Tony."

STONY*STONY*STONY

Of course, the peace and quiet had to come to an end, didn't it? A week after New Years', the team was called in to handle a giant robot that was tearing up the downtown area. Of all times to do it, Bruce was in Seoul helping a Dr. Helen Cho with a project she'd wanted some of his input on and, of course, with no Thor they were sorely lacking in the 'brute strength' or 'magical thunder turning the metal robot into a lightning rod of death' categories. Steve could throw a punch, and Tony's suit could take a hit, but this thing had armor that was a similar density to the Chitauri whale-creatures and no mouth for Tony to fly in Jonah-style. Steve's shield seemed to be making a dent, but unless they found a weak spot, it would do them no good.

But they did what they could. Natasha hung out above, trying to find patterns in its movements or weak spots. Clint attempted to shoot explosive arrows at supposedly weak points Natasha threw out. And Steve and Tony just kept trying to shield-bash and repulsor-blast the crap out of it.

And then, as Tony made a connection to the robot—just the tiniest brush of metal on metal—Tony felt a wave crash through him and his suit stopped working and he knew he'd just felt an EMP go through him. On the one hand, he was thankful his arc reactor didn't react to such things or this could be a lot worse. The other hand was torn between being concerned about hitting the ground in the next ten seconds and wondering why the hell his suit had been affected but the robot was still moving.

Apparently, it didn't run on anything an EMP would affect. And it had only worked when Tony touched it…effectively ending his participating in this battle. At least until the next suit got here. And that was assuming he didn't pancake when he hit the…

Steve. He hit Steve, who had apparently seen him falling like dead weight and, since he couldn't respond via earpiece, Steve assumed something was wrong and jumped to break Tony's fall—God bless Captain America.

"Steve, are you ok?" Super serum or not, getting hit by several hundred pounds of metal was no cakewalk. He pulled his faceplate off since his earpiece wasn't working anymore and being heard through the mask was no easy feat, especially with the loud crashing robot around them.

"I'm fine—what happened? We lost contact with you!"

"EMP—knocked out my suit and communication. Don't touch it!" Steve nodded, relaying the information to the other two, who probably wouldn't have gone near it anyways.

"Barton says that's probably why his arrows have been less than effective. Alright; stay here until you can get another suit, got it?" And damn if that didn't get Tony's hackles up.

"I'm not some fucking _damsel_ , Captain," he spat, well aware that until the suit got here (which would take at least ten minutes from when he made contact with JARVIS), he was pretty useless.

"I know you're not, Tony, but you've already done more than enough for everyone. The only thing you need to worry about right now is keeping yourself safe until the suit gets here, got it?" He wanted to argue, but knew his time would be better spent making contact with JARVIS and getting back into the battle, so he gave a tight nod and surveyed the area. Coffee shop…wifi (hopefully still working) and possibly people with cell phones—his had obviously been shorted out.

But he and Rogers would be having quite the discussion about Tony not being talked to like he couldn't take care of himself without the suit.

"J!"

"A suit is already on its way to your location, Sir, though I doubt this one will fare much better against your enemy." Tony had already thought about that—there was just no getting through this thing's armor. The suit that had had the best chance was fried, lying in pieces beside him. Then…

"JARVIS, can we hack it? I mean, it didn't shut down with the EMP so it's either not running on typical electronics or it only emits it outwards and if the latter's the case then it's mechanical. We can hack mechanical, right?"

"Scans show it is run by computer, Sir. However, since I am confined to the Tower until the Mark 39 arrives, I am unable to acquire the necessary proximity." Tony smirked, putting the phone between his ear and his shoulder to crack his fingers and stared at the borrowed screen in front of him.

"That's alright, J. I wrote you—I can hack it." He'd been fighting this thing as Iron Man; time to fight like Tony Stark. Two minutes later, Tony was fairly sure he was done. It just needed sixty seconds to completely initialize and take the robotic bastard down. Half a minute later, JARVIS spoke.

"Sir, my sensors indicate that your location is being targeted." So the robotic bastard had already triangulated the source of the hack. Crap.

"J, time to hack completion?"

"Fifteen seconds, Sir."

"Time to robotic bastard firing?"

"Eight seconds."

"Figures."

"Yes, Sir." Tony grabbed the laptop, yelling "bill me" behind him, and ran out of the coffee shop. He needed to stay close enough to get a wifi signal but far enough that the blast wouldn't injure the people in the coffee shop. He got outside and climbed on top of a car parked on the curb and held the laptop with one hand, watching the hack's completion status, the phone held to his ear with the other, waiting for JARVIS to give him the signal.

"Jump in three, two, now, Sir." Tony jumped on command and, while mid-air, received confirmation from JARVIS that the shutdown had been initiated. He landed hard on the pavement, a slab of concrete cushioning his fall and bruising his side. He saw the robot gear up to fire again and stayed awake just long enough to see the damn thing shut down, one more solid hit from Steve's shield and an arrow from Clint finally enough to knock it down, before everything went dark.

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review! :)**


	6. Limited Experience

**A/N:** So the story has kind of deviated from the video in my mind (and now in the actual writing), but I'm still keeping to the quotes as chapters. So the Christmas scene and the battle don't happen in the video, but this is what it's morphed to in my head so...yeah. I still credit the video for the inspiration though, and you should ALL DEFINITELY STILL WATCH IT A LOT!

 _Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now. Eventual mentions of suicide in later chapters.

 _Warning:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **The anticipation before the kiss**

 **Mirrored in my shaking lips**

 **Oh god, I feel so unprepared**

 **The two of us so out of place**

 **My feelings written on my face**

 **Got what I want but now I'm scared**

 **What if we ruin it all, and we love like fools?**

 **And all we have we lose?**

* * *

It had been over thirty hours and Steve hadn't moved from Tony's bedside. It had only been sever bumps and bruises that Tony had sustained, but Pepper, who had arrived only three short hours after the incident, had pointed out that Tony would be up and moving—even to his own detriment—very shortly after he was able to stand without falling. She suggested that keeping him on forcible bedrest for at least a week would be in Tony's (and their) best interest.

So there was a sedative set up to give Tony just enough to make him extremely complacent about not leaving his room. Steve knew Tony was going to lose his temper in the worst way when he was conscious enough to realize what was going on, but at least he'd be in full fighting form. Steve also knew he had a talk coming from Tony regarding the "damsel" treatment during the fight, as Tony had called it.

Again, if Tony was alive and alert enough to start that fight, Steve would be more than willing enough to participate if only as confirmation that Tony was dishing it out.

Pepper managed to convince Steve to leave the room around day four to get some fresh air and take a walk, but after a few minutes of being bothered by an overly polite waitress at their coffee place, Steve returned only thirty minutes later.

"Steve, he's fine. And you're not doing yourself or him any favors by refusing to leave his bedside," Pepper said, trying to get him to see reason. He glanced up at her for a short moment before returning his gaze to the sketchbook in front of him, where he was rendering small caricatures of the team, including Fury, Pepper, and Happy.

"I don't want him to be alone when he wakes up. Even if he's unconscious, he'll know someone's here for him," he muttered, adding some shading to Mjolnor.

"Steve…"

STONY*STONY*STONY

He was in permanent fuzzy state lately. He _knew_ he was being sedated, and he knew that was the reason he wasn't as properly angry about it as he should be, but he was content for the moment to just drift in and out of consciousness. A few times a day (he assumed, at normal meal times) he ate something that tasted like soup and jello and sucked down water, but considering his body was used to going long periods without something other than coffee, he suspected his caretakers (probably Pepper and Bruce and Steve) weren't too worried that he wasn't getting a lot to eat.

They knew he'd make it up when he was awake and yelling at them for this in the first place. Part of him was touched that they cared enough about him to save him from his own destructive tendencies. The other, proud part of him was going to be in a right state.

He was drifting more to the conscious end of the spectrum when he heard Steve's low voice speaking to someone. He caught the end of Steve saying, "someone's here for him." Then he heard Pepper's voice, low and slow. He knew that tone; she usually only used it on the rare occasion that she was concerned about raising Tony's anger or making him close himself off.

So why was she using it with Captain America?

"Steve…do you…how do you feel about Tony?" He heard the subtle shift; whatever she'd originally intended to say, she decided wasn't the right thing right now.

"He's probably my best friend since I've woken up; maybe since before that." Tony knew about Bucky Barnes from their late night chats, so he knew what that meant to the super soldier. "He understands what it's like—the dark, the cold, the loneliness. It's easy to talk to him and…it's easy to read him, once I got to know him anyways. We're not all that different, actually." Tony thought maybe he imagined the coloring of warmth in Steve's tone until Pepper asked what she'd clearly been going to the first time.

"Steve, do you love him?" If Tony had more control over himself, he might've stopped breathing. The sedative kept his body relaxed, but his mind was at full speed, fighting the effects of the relaxation his body was trying to force on it.

Steve took a long while to answer, but Tony heard the deep breath he took before he did.

"I…I think I do. I've never felt like this about someone before, so I guess I wouldn't know." That didn't sound like the answer of someone who hadn't already been contemplating this.

"That's a pretty good indicator." Both Steve and Pepper let out a small laugh at this, Steve's sounding a little shaky as it was followed by a shuddering breath and a question.

"Is it always going to be like this?"

"Wondering if he'll do something stupidly self-sacrificing that he claims he's confident he'll come out on the other side of without a scratch while secretly calculating his chances to be less than 12% or some stupid thing like that? Pretty much." _Dammit_ , _Pepper_. Even in a near comatose state, she managed to make Tony feel like absolute shit for the stuff he put her through. "You do have an advantage, though—you're out there with him. You understand him, understand that he has to be out there, even if it's dangerous. You'll never try to hold him back just because you're worried. You can be his partner."

"If he'll let me," Steve muttered. Tony wasn't sure Pepper caught it, but he did, and it followed him as he let himself get sucked back down by the sedative and his own tormented thoughts.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Bruce took Tony off the sedative a few days after Steve had poured his heart out to Pepper. In those few days, Steve had realized his feelings were far enough that he needed to talk to Tony. If, for whatever reason, Tony found out before Steve told him himself, well…he remembered well enough what his confrontation with Peggy had been like. Sure, Tony probably wouldn't fire a live weapon at him, but he didn't want to imagine how much worse it _could_ be.

But since Tony woke up, he was difficult to track down. Of course, Steve didn't want to admit everything in front of the whole team and nowadays, those were the only opportunities he had. Tony was never in his lab, which was worrying in itself. He hadn't confronted the team leader with his feelings about the "damsel" situation or the sedatives that had led to the billionaire's sudden disappearance.

And JARVIS wasn't saying anything, which meant Tony was deliberately hiding and didn't _want_ to be found.

Then, Steve found out one day from Pepper that Tony was in Malibu for a few days. She had called asking if he knew why Tony was there and was apparently surprised to find out no one knew he'd even left. He thought he heard her tone rising in anger by the time they hung up, but he didn't know what he'd done to warrant that, so he supposed something had happened on her end.

STONY*STONY*STONY

"Thanks, Steve. I'll talk to you later." Crap. Tony made a not-so-subtle attempt to turn on his heel and exit the CEO office of SI but of course he wasn't that lucky. He'd have no problem walking out on absolutely anybody else, but not Pepper. "Anthony Edward Stark, you sit your ass down right now."

"Nice to see you, Pep! Am I assuming you don't want to spend time with me, then?"

"Maybe after you explain to me why no one in New York knew you were here?" Tony shrugged as nonchalantly as possible, knowing Pepper would see right through it but trying desperately anyways.

"I was out for a test flight and realized I hadn't properly seen you since before being sedated; thought I'd come and see your beautiful face and check on SI." She waved her hand in clear dismissal, implying she believed exactly none of what he'd said.

"You hate checking up on SI, Tony. It's half the reason you made me CEO, the other being you were dying and stupidly didn't want to worry me. So forgive me when I say that I know most of your bullshit and how much you're willing to lie to keep your pride intact or feelings hidden, so which is it this time?" She folded her hands and dropped her chin onto them, peering at him intently. He was doing his very best not to squirm, but her eyes widened in understanding nonetheless.

"Feelings. Let me guess, you heard Steve and me talking about feelings while you were sedated?" He was briefly surprised before he saw the raised eyebrow and the smirk and realized…

"You knew I was awake."

"Even sedated, you breathe differently when you're conscious," she said with another slight wave. "Yes, I took action, knowing how long it would take the two of you to pull your heads out from your asses." His mouth opened and shut like a fish for a few moments before he recomposed himself and sent her a cool, collected glare and smirk.

"Unluckily for you, my head seems to still be up there, because he doesn't know how I feel. And he's not going to."

"So you admit you have feelings for him?" He snorted.

"Of course, I do Pepper. How do you not fall in love with Steven Rogers? Looks aside, he's charming, deals with my absolutely horrible mood swings, doesn't let himself get pushed around, and mostly supports my superhero-ing. I'd have to be emotionally impaired not to fall in love with the man."

"Apparently you are emotionally impaired since you can't seem to tell him!" She was shouting at this point, and Tony thanked himself for closing the door before sitting down (which he usually didn't do). "Tony, you're being a fool!" He shrugged.

"Not the first and won't be the last time someone calls me that," Tony responded, standing and making his way to the door to try and end the conversation.

"He loves you!"

"I don't want him to, Pepper! I don't want him to love me, and I don't _want_ to love him! It's only going to end up hurting both of us!" And he didn't give her another opportunity to answer before he whipped her door open and stalked to the labs, intent on losing himself in the implants he needed to finish for the Mark 43.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Steve was apparently visibly upset for the week Tony was in Malibu. After the first few comments from Bruce and Clint, everyone seemed to give up on trying to get him involved in any team building things. Since Tony would be absent this Sunday for team dinner, had purposely missed the one before that, and had been sedated for the one before _that_ , the tradition had somewhat fizzled, as had movie nights.

This time, when Fury called him up for a mission, Steve readily accepted, unable to stand being useless and mopey any longer. Before he left, though, he pulled Bruce aside.

"I don't know why, but I think Tony's ignoring me, possibly for what I said to him before he got injured." Bruce had already been told the entire story of Tony's injury when he returned from Seoul. "I'm worried about him, but he won't let me in. When he comes back, can you try and, I don't know, work with him in his lab or try to make sure he leaves every now and again? I worry about him being alone for so long."

If he had it his way, Tony would never be alone again, but Tony seemed intent on making sure the super soldier _didn't_ have it his way

"Sure, Steve, but are you sure that's why Tony's mad? I mean, that doesn't seem like Tony…Tony's more of a—"

"Rant until you're unwilling to do the same thing again for fear of the same reaction?" Steve finished easily, already having had the same thought. "That's what I thought, too."

"Right—this seems more like a reaction he'd have to someone trying to talk about emotions with him. Did he and Pepper get into a fight?" Steve shook his head.

"I doubt it—he's in Malibu right now, and Pepper didn't seem to think anything was wrong between them when she was here while he was sedated." Bruce seemed to think on that for a moment.

"Steve, did you say anything to—or around—Tony while he was sedated?" Steve's face flushed; he didn't want to have this discussion with the doctor. Particularly not before he'd had it with Tony. Still, the doctor had enough experience with emotions that he easily read the man's face. "Ah—I see."

"So you…you think Tony knows?" This was exactly what he had feared would happen; he didn't realize he'd already beaten himself to the punch.

"Steve…" Bruce took a step closer, but Steve was standing stone still for half a second before turning and fleeing the room. He heard the doctor release a soft curse before he managed to exit the room.

He took the next four missions Fury assigned him; he didn't live in the Tower for more than a month.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Tony hadn't realized Steve wasn't actively living in the tower anymore since he was doing his damnedest to ignore the man. However, about two weeks after he returned from Malibu, Bruce had convinced him to go back to his workshop a little more, often times joining him with his own small projects, and made a seemingly offhanded comment about how Steve was on his third of five missions.

Tony became visibly more antsy after that; he refused to acknowledge that he was afraid for Steve being on mission after mission.

The day Steve returned from his final mission, it was just Bruce and Tony in the lab, sitting in silence and working on their own individual projects, when Tony heard the noises on Bruce's side stop. When he looked up, the doctor was looking at him, arms crossed, in a way that made Tony feel very much like a lab experiment.

"Tony—you've tried, haven't you?" Tony cocked his head, mirroring Bruce's position by his own work table, including the arms crossed. They'd barely started and Tony was already defensive. "When I was talking about the other guy spitting out a bullet…I saw your face." Oh—that. He sighed with a rueful smirk before answering.

"Rogers was right—I'm no hero, Bruce. I'm selfish. I created Iron Man to try and wipe out all the death I was responsible for, but I just created more death.

"Bruce, you saw yourself as a monster and tried to rid the world of it. The fact that you couldn't—that your body literally saved itself—it's like it was telling you that you have something more you're meant to do. But me…someone else had to die to keep me alive. Someone always gets hurt whenever I get close enough to end it, but someone gets hurt when I don't, and…I'm weak." He uncrossed his arms and turned away from Bruce, bracing his arms in a wide stance on the work table, trying to steady himself as he let himself remember Yinsen.

"No, Tony—you're strong. Strong enough to not let yourself get that low." Tony gave a dry chuckle.

"Bruce, I've been that low. You were right. I've _tried_ , but something always gets in the way. Pepper, the team, the world…"

"Steve." He whipped around to glare at the scientist who was now _openly_ smirking at him. _Maybe I am a bad influence on him,_ Tony mused before letting himself get irritated again.  
"Goddamn is everyone going to shove that in my face?" He shook his head before speaking again. "The closest I've ever got wasn't even me doing it. I mean, does it count if you give up while something else kills you? It's part of my issues, you know? I mean, I was _dying_. And everyone did exactly as I expected. Rhodey—he took the suit. Pep took SI. I tricked them both into doing it, but what does it say about me and them that I _could_ , Bruce? About who I was, who I'd been…that I could make them believe I'd ruin everything if I held on long enough?" He knew Bruce had opened his mouth to respond without even looking, but he pushed on. "It says it's _true_ , Bruce. I ruin everything I touch if I hold on long enough. So I have to let go. Of Pep, of the team, yes, even of Steve. I can't ruin the best things about me."

"Even if those _best things_ won't let go of you, Tony?" Bruce had come around to the other side of his work table, forcing Tony to look at him. "Because the team needs you—wants you—around. And Steve doesn't seem like the kind of guy to let go of something or someone he loves without a fight." He felt his entire face crumple into an expression of utter defeat.

"Bruce, he _can't_." Another smirk.

"Tony, I think you're going to have to learn to live with the fact that he can. More than that, I'm pretty sure he does." Tony was more than pretty sure; he'd heard it. But he was the only one who knew that was why he was ignoring Steve.

"But it's messy…complicated…dangerous. I don't want him to love me! "I love you" turns into "you failed me" turns into very bad things. That's my limited experience." Bruce gave him a disbelieving look.

"You're afraid he'll disappoint you?"

"Bruce, you know me better than that." The look of disbelief immediately shifted to understanding and then…fuck it all, _pity_.

"You're afraid you'll disappoint him."

"I'm not afraid of that…I already know it's coming. I'm afraid of the fallout. The end of some of the best things in my life. The team, you living here as part of civilization…"

"Steve." Tony shook his head vehemently.

"That can't end if it doesn't start; that's my point."

"It's already started, Tony, and you're hurting both of you by not at least talking about it."

"Bruce, I'm rude and selfish and uncompromising. The worst case scenario is that being with me destroys him."

"And the best?"

"It destroys me."

* * *

 **A/N:** Please Review! :)


	7. Wearing a Parachute

**A/N:** So the story has kind of deviated from the video in my mind (and now in the actual writing), but I'm still keeping to the quotes as chapters. So the Christmas scene and the battle don't happen in the video, but this is what it's morphed to in my head so...yeah. I still credit the video for the inspiration though, and you should ALL DEFINITELY STILL WATCH IT A LOT!

 _Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ I'm planning to put a chapter in at the end that could turn the rating of this from T to M, but I haven't 100% committed to that yet, so T for now.

 _Warnings:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **And I don't want you to go**

 **But I love you**

 **So tell me what**

 **Tell me what we choose**

 **What we choose**

 **What we choose**

* * *

Tony's very deliberate "storm-away-from-Bruce" started off with the great effect of leaving Bruce behind in the lab, muttering about stubborn geniuses. It ended with the sudden realization that Steve was home (and only later did he realize he hadn't called it that since he and Steve had stopped their usual hang outs) and in the kitchen, head in one hand and a coffee in the other.

Tony only had a brief moment to appreciate the sight before Steve's head snapped up, probably expecting one of the wonder twins. He'd be lying if he said his heart didn't break a little when Steve actually looked terrified to realize it was him.

In the long moment before either of them spoke, Tony felt a compulsion to spill everything, to tell him everything. Why he'd started avoiding Steve, how he desperately missed their time in the lab or getting coffee or their late night talks. He wanted to tell him how worried he'd been for the super soldier while he was out on his never-ending stream of missions.

But he managed to keep quiet long enough for Steve to apparently feel like he _needed_ to say something.

"Long time no see, Stark." Tony didn't know what hurt more; the casual, flippant tone that Steve was so clearly trying to maintain, or the deliberate way he tried to maintain his distance by using Tony's last name. Even if Steve didn't know exactly why he was being ignored, he clearly knew something was wrong. Maybe he thought it was his fault (oh, god, how Tony hoped he didn't—nothing could ever be further from the truth) or maybe he thought it was just Tony being Tony (although that possibility hurt, it was closer to the truth), but he seemed intent on doing what he thought Tony wanted.

What Tony wanted and what Tony thought was for the best were two very different things at this moment.

"I could say the same, Captain," he replied with a painfully casual smile. "How were the missions?" _The missions I couldn't stop thinking about?_

Steve shrugged. "Uneventful, I suppose. Saved some soldiers, beat some bad guys—same old." He didn't seem to know what else to say. Oh god, was this…awkward silence? "How was Malibu?"

Oh yeah, that was the last time Steve had actually been in the tower.

"Oh you know, bothered Pepper, built some stuff, same old." Steve gave a nod of the head, but didn't say anything else. Tony wandered over to the coffee pot, hoping to put some distance between them and the conversation…if it could be called that.

His cup was halfway full when Steve spoke again.

"I'm sorry I ruined our friendship." He said it so low, Tony was almost certain—was actually hoping—he hadn't heard it. Then he continued. "I know it's not an ideal situation, and I swear I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable or…TONY!"

STONY*STONY*STONY

He was choking each word out, knowing if he didn't make it through this, there was little to no chance Tony would ever talk to him like a friend again. If that was even a chance.

"I know it's not an ideal situation, and I swear I never meant to make you feel uncomfortable or…" Then he saw the coffee pouring over the counter and realized Tony had stopped paying attention long enough for it to pour over the rim of his cup and spill scalding hot onto the other man's toes. "TONY!"

He jumped up, knocking his own cup over on the table in the process, and pulling Tony back and out of the way. Most of it managed to miss the billionaire, although the pot did drop from his hand onto the counter, spilling the rest everywhere.

"Oops…sorry, Steve. I guess I'm a little tired," Tony said, slightly pulling back from Steve and rubbing a hand over his face. Steve wasn't fooled, although he was hurt by how Tony seemed to want to get as far from him as possible. When Tony was tired, he looked like he was strung out and wired on gallons of caffeine. This Tony actually _looked_ exhausted, which meant he was still over thirty-six hours away from reaching that point.

"Tony, please listen. I'm trying to apologize…"

"For what, Captain? You didn't do anything wrong," Tony replied, waving a hand in a dismissive fashion and starting towards the door.

"Tony, will you just STOP?" The brunette halted in his tracks, but made no move to turn around. "I know I screwed up, but I'm trying to apologize! I really don't want to go through another month of taking missions just so I can try to pretend you don't hate me!"

"Goddammit, Tony, if you don't tell him, I will!" Both of them turned to see Bruce standing in the other entrance to the kitchen, arms crossed and looking very relaxed despite his aggressive tone. "One or both of you is going to end up running yourselves into the ground before you acknowledge what the rest of us already know, and I don't think any of us want to see you lying sedated again anytime soon, no matter what Clint says about the quiet being nice." And with that, he turned on his heel and walked away, apparently trusting the two of them to actually follow his instructions.

Once he was gone, Steve turned to look at Tony and was surprised to see him still standing there.

"What was that about?"

"You didn't do anything, Steve. Well, you didn't do anything wrong, I guess I should say. Although I beg to differ, Pepper and Bruce assure me that you're not crazy and you haven't done anything wrong." Ok, then Steve was officially unsure of what caused all this.

"Go ahead and say it, Steve. I know you've wanted to for awhile; it's why I've been avoiding you." Steve sucked in a breath; so he was right. Tony knew and he didn't _want_ to know.

"If it means losing you as a friend, Tony, I don't want…"

"Just say it, Steve."

"But…"

"Steve." This time when he spoke, Tony was looking him right in the eyes and he couldn't find it in him to say anything else.

"I love you, Tony." And Tony, of all things, _smiled_. Not a smirk, not a grimace, but an actual smile. And then he said five words that Steve never thought he'd hear.

"I love you, too, Steve." But before Steve could return the smile, Tony continued. "But I don't want to be with you." And darn if that wasn't the fastest his good mood had ever dropped. "Steve, I _can't_ be with you. I can't do that to you, to me, to the team…"

"Why the hell does this have anything to do with the team?" Steve exclaimed, unable to contain himself. "You love me, I love you, society doesn't seem to care about the fact that we're both men—not that that would stop me if they did because I'm pretty sure saving the world from aliens gives us the right to not care a whole lot what they think—why should anything else matter?"

"Because it does, Steve! Because of who we are, what we do…you were wrong, Steve. I _am_ a threat! Maybe not on purpose, but can you honestly say you'll be able to focus completely on a mission if you're busy worrying about if I'm ok? I know I can't! Neither of us can focus on a mission, on the team, if we're too busy worrying each other!"

Steve couldn't help it; he started laughing. It was quiet at first, but by the time Tony had finished and a few seconds had past, it was much louder.

"I'm so glad the safety of the team is a joke to you, Captain," Tony spat. That sobered Steve up pretty quickly…and got him pretty angry.

"I'm so glad you think so little of me, Tony. The fact that you think I can't do my job just because I'm also worried about you aside…do you think just because we're not together I'm not going to still worry about you? That I'm going to stop loving you just because you say we shouldn't be together? Do you think I haven't been thinking about you every day in the last month even though I thought you hated me? God, Tony, the last time I went on a mission—even for a few days—I came back to find you dead! I was gone for a month—I didn't know what to come home to."

It was why he'd been sitting in the kitchen in the first place, trying to work up the nerve to ask JARVIS how his creator was.

"I can't just turn it off, Tony. But I also know how to reign it in when necessary. So tell me again why you _can't_ at least try?" He hadn't realized it, but he'd slowly been moving closer to the other man during his ran. By the time he finished, they were nearly breathing the same air. Steve wouldn't even have to move that far to…

"The reason doesn't matter, Steve. The _fact_ is that what you want and what I want don't line up, and that's something you're just going to have to accept." And his body twitched in a way that said he was going to turn away, but Steve's hand on his cheek stopped him and those wide brown eyes landed on him and whatever he'd been about to say about personal space vanished.

"And what you're going to have to accept is that I'm not going to let go just because you say so, Tony. Until I get the solid, foolproof reason that doesn't exist as to why we shouldn't or can't be together, I will wait for you to come to your senses that _this_ is not a bad thing." And he leaned in and Steve heard Tony's breath hitch, but instead of tilting his head to kiss him passionately like he'd been dreaming of doing, he placed one on the man's forehead, stopping for a moment to breathe in and reassure him that Tony _was_ , in fact, alive and…kind-of well.

Then he pulled back and looked straight into the man's eyes with a little smile and added, "And I'll probably still be waiting even after that." And he forced himself to leave the kitchen.

He needed to give Tony some time to himself.

STONY*STONY*STONY

 _Dammit_. _Dammit_ _dammit_ _dammit_. No other word was making it through his head right now, and he couldn't seem to move from his position in the kitchen. Then he heard footsteps from the other door where Bruce had left only minutes before, starting this whole debacle, and he looked over to see Natasha come in. She eyed the mess on the floor, but didn't say anything about it.

She knew. The fact that he had heard her footsteps implied she wanted him to know she was coming.

"What, have you come to say _I told you so_ too? Because you'll have to line up behind Bruce and Pepper," Tony snapped miserably. She just shrugged, letting his snark roll off her.

"I never told you anything. Oh, I knew," she said at his raised eyebrow, "but seeing as I never actually said anything to you, I'm not entitled to an "I told you so". He is right, though. You guys being together? It won't hurt the team. I think we're all actually either actively encouraging it or just taking bets on when it happens. Besides Thor, who probably only has an inkling based on all the sexual tension between the two of you on the bridge," she said with a smirk.

"You're all encouraging it until it happens and you realize…"

"What, it either destroys him or you? Yeah, I heard your conversation with Bruce—shocker."

"Privacy issues aside, Steve might be right, but so am I. Being together would most likely destroy one of us."

"Not being together is absolutely destroying both of you. Steve might be focused on missions when he's in the heat of it, but it's absolutely wrecking him outside of that. And Bruce told me how often you leave the lab. Neither one of you can live like this much longer; did the palladium poisoning teach you nothing?"

"It taught me not to get close enough to people that it hurts them when something happens to me."

"It's too late for that and you know it, Stark. Now grow up and treat Steve like an adult, not like some delicate piece of glass you have to protect. He's more than capable of making his own decisions and dealing with the nonexistent fallout you seem to think is going to result of this." Was _everyone_ looking to undermine absolutely everything he said today? She continued to ignore his look of death that sent valets, SI employees, and just about everybody except the press, the Avengers, Pepper, and Rhodey running.

"Was there something you actually needed, or are you just here to tell me I'm an idiot?"

"Can't it be both?" She smirked, but continued. "Steve didn't get the chance to tell you, but our last mission involved recovering someone who, along with being extremely skilled in certain things I'm not supposed to say but you could easily figure out with a quick hack, can get that shrapnel out of your chest."

STONY*STONY*STONY

A week later, Steve was pacing in the SHIELD hospital. Tony was sedated on the other side of the glass as small pieces of metal were slowly extracted from the gaping hole in his chest. The arc reactor glowed brightly from its position at the base of Tony's throat as it kept the remaining pieces from circling back to his heart. He'd been under for nearly two hours, but the man had held up ten fingers just moments ago.

Ten more minutes and the arc reactor would be unnecessary. Helen Cho, the doctor Bruce had been working with, had brought a machine with her that was supposed to essentially replace the layer of muscle and skin where the arc reactor was long enough for Tony's body to replace it all itself, not that Tony should be doing anything strenuous for awhile, but it would at least allow him to be out of the hospital bed sooner.

"Steve, calm down. He knows what he's doing—Stark's fine."

"Things can go wrong!" Steve knew he was being ridiculous; Tony had probably done his homework and made sure this was for sure going to work before allowing them to put him under, but that didn't calm his nerves.

"But they won't, so stop pacing or go outside and do it." She knew he wouldn't do that, which meant he really had no choice but to stop pacing unless he wanted her to drag him out. He could resist, but he probably wouldn't. "It'll be done in a few minutes." The doctor was already removing the wires, beginning the final steps that would end the surgery.

A few hours later found Steve at Tony's bedside. Part of him didn't want to be here—the last time he'd sat vigil while the man was unconscious, it had ended in a blowout in the kitchen after a month of active avoidance—but just as he couldn't then, Steve couldn't let Tony wake up alone. Sure, he was dosed enough to keep him out until the next morning when Dr. Cho would do her work, but he'd supposedly been dosed enough last time to not hear anything Steve told Pepper.

Sure enough, he heard the shift in breathing that indicated Tony was waking up around midnight.

 _"Steve…"_ It was quiet, almost a hiss, and Steve thought he'd imagined it. After all, Tony's eyes weren't open and Steve was six feet from the bed—he couldn't know Steve was there. And then Steve realized he didn't—Steve's name was just the first thing Tony's mind thought of when he woke from the sedation.

And that thought warmed Steve's heart just a little bit.

He walked over to Tony's bed and put his hand on the man's cheek, just like he had in the kitchen almost a week ago, and smiled softly as Tony's eyes fluttered open.

"I'm here, Tony," he whispered, leaning down to place a kiss on Tony's forehead. "I'm here," he said again, even though Tony still hadn't said anything. Then…

"Steve," he said again with a smile. Steve knew Tony was still on a little morphine, which meant he might not be completely aware of what was going on right now. That didn't mean Steve's heart didn't leap when Tony said, "I love you, Steve. I'm sorry…I hurt you…didn't…didn't want to…to hurt you." He was fighting to stay awake, his voice catching every few seconds. "I do want…want you…want to _be_ with you."

"I know, Tony."

"But…we can't, Steve. I'm bad…bad for you. Bad for everyone," Tony slurred, closing his eyes turning his head so Steve's hand fell from his cheek.

"Oh, Tony," Steve sighed, not loud enough for the other man to hear him. He thought Tony had fallen back asleep until he saw the tears pooling in the corner of his eye. That was enough; Steve didn't care how angry Tony was in the morning when he realized what Steve had done.

He lifted the covers up and slid in behind Tony, wrapping his arms around the other man and trying to calm his own erratic heart beat at having Tony so close to him.

"Tony, you're ridiculous and eccentric and unpredictable and occasionally self-destructive. You're brilliant and snarky and moody and difficult. You're so many things," he continued, dropping his voice to a whisper as he leaned closer to Tony's ear, "but you're not bad. Not for the team, not for the world, and not in a million years for me." He felt the shuddering breath that the other man took and when Tony started to roll, he thought it was to escape Steve's arms, but then he curled in and fisted his hands in Steve's shirt and proceeded to cry himself back to sleep.

Steve stayed awake for another few hours, holding Tony and silently praying the other man would remember and realize the truth in his words the next morning.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Tony was back in fighting form a week later.

Well, not actually. Natasha sparred with him three times a week, taking it easy on him but trying to make sure he did enough to keep himself fit without ruining Dr. Cho's work. In the off time, he had worked on installing the arc reactor that had once been in his chest into his suit. Technically, now that it wasn't actually in his chest, he could go back to using palladium, but he wanted _his_ arc reactor in the Mark 43 at the very least. This suit was going to be amazing when it was done. Meanwhile, he'd made a new palladium core and installed it in the 42, just so he had something to use if he got called in. He'd make a few more for some of the other more recent suits when he got further on the 43.

And Steve…well, after he'd woken up in Steve's arms, he'd found it very difficult to maintain his opinion on _not_ being with the man. Oh, he was still maintaining it, but he at least realized Steve wasn't letting this go easy and now that all the cards were on the table (well, except one or two of Tony's) there was really no good reason not to spend time together again.

It wasn't like before the robot incident, but it wasn't like immediately after either, and that's all either of them cared about.

"Tony, the team wants to watch Star Wars and I was sent to see if you wanted to join."

"Not tonight, Steve. I've only got a few more modifications before I get to start test runs," he said without looking up, so he missed Steve moving into the room until the blonde was right next to him, grabbing the screwdriver out of his hands.

"If you've only got a few, then it's nothing you can't do tomorrow. Team time, Tony," Steve said with a grin, giving the other man a little shove. "Mush."

"Alright, no need to get pushy, Rogers," he said with a laugh. "JARVIS, keep running scans on the micros?"

"Of course, Sir. Enjoy your movie." And didn't the AI's tone just _scream_ 'pleased'. Tony knew JARVIS loved Steve for always getting him out of the lab. How was he supposed to maintain his 'we can't be together' attitude when even his damn AI approved?

There were already multiple bowls of popcorn set out and Clint was working on setting everything up. Bruce was skimming a magazine in the armchair and Natasha was lying across the love seat, leaving the large sofa unoccupied. Even Tony could see this was a complete set up, and he glared at each of them in turn before plopping down on the floor in front of the sofa.

Natasha rolled her eyes and threw a piece of popcorn at him.

Steve disappeared into the kitchen and Tony pointedly ignored everyone's looks. No one managed to say anything before the blonde came back in with a coffee for Bruce and four beers for the rest of them. Tony figured he was safe as Clint dropped into the love seat, Natasha's legs coming to lie on his.

Then Steve sat on the sofa…right behind him with his legs folded up on the couch, one hand holding his own beer, the other carding through Tony's hair. Natasha's smug look didn't even phase him—he was too shocked.

By thirty minutes in, Tony couldn't even stop himself from leaning into the touch. His eyes were closed—he'd seen this movie a million times, and he could hear Clint's commentary just as well with his eyes closed—and his head was tilted back, pressed back into Steve's fingers.

In the back of his mind, he _knew_ it was exactly what he shouldn't be doing, but he was on his third day awake and he was still on painkillers from his surgery, so the things in the back of his mind weren't getting much preference over the amazing feeling of Steve's fingers.

Then Clint's commentary got cut short and Tony opened his eyes at the "umph" that seemed to indicate Natasha had elbowed him in the gut. Both spies turned their gaze quickly back to the screen, but Tony knew it meant they'd probably been staring at him and Steve and started cursing himself, reluctantly moving from Steve's reach and standing to go to the kitchen under the guise of grabbing more beers.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Steve was upset. If Natasha hadn't cut Clint's rant off and the archer hadn't been so obvious, Tony would still be contentedly leaning into his touch. It was physically the closest they'd been since Steve had awoken with Tony in his arms at the hospital and it felt so natural. Steve was even starting to believe Tony might be warming to the idea.

And then he'd been gone. He heard the rummaging in the fridge and clink of glass that meant more beers and sighed, running a hand through his hair in a display of frustration. Then he heard the nearly silent footsteps behind him come to a pause and tried not to hold his breath.

A few moments later, Tony seemed to come to a decision. After placing two of the open bottles on the end table by Natasha, he handed one to Steve and then sat a few feet away from the super soldier. Steve tried not to feel disappointed, but soon found he didn't have to try—Tony had placed his own beer on the floor and gone from sitting to lying down with his head on Steve's leg, face resolutely turned towards the TV screen. A glance towards the love seat told him Natasha was just as shocked as he was, but Bruce simply smiled and went back to sipping his probably-cold coffee.

So Steve just smiled and went back to carding his fingers through Tony's hair, far happier than he'd been two minutes ago.

They'd never talked about waking up together in the hospital bed, and Steve was pretty sure Tony didn't remember the talk that had led to Steve climbing in with him, but he at least seemed to accept the fact that Steve wasn't going to give up. Steve hadn't pushed the issue, pleased enough that Tony was at least willing to spend time together again, but if tonight was any indication, maybe soon he'd be willing to actually have a discussion instead of an argument.

By the time the movie ended, Steve and Tony had both fallen asleep. He awoke to Natasha shaking his shoulder, and when he saw the phone in her hand, he knew why and his heart dropped.

"Tell Fury I don't want another mission right now," he whispered, trying not to wake Tony, who was still in lap, one hand fisting the material of his pants next to the brunette's head. He thought that'd be the end, but Natasha shook her head.

"Fury doesn't want _us_ , he wants _you_."

"And I said…"

"No, Steve. You as in you _and_ Stark." Steve raised an eyebrow; what warranted him _and_ Tony? "I don't think it's a dangerous mission; I think he needs a show of brains and force and what better team for that?" She said it with a smile that Steve could almost classify as genuine, but it still had an edge of mockery.

Him and Tony on a mission together. He supposed he could do that. But…

"In the morning. We'll leave in the morning," he whispered, laying his left hand over the one Tony had fisted in his pants. The periodic clenching and unclenching told him Tony was fading in and out of nightmares, but it wasn't bad enough yet to wake the man and he knew the genius hadn't slept in a while.

The clenching stopped. Steve didn't notice Natasha nod and leave; he just threaded his fingers through Tony's and smiled as he allowed himself to fall back asleep.

STONY*STONY*STONY

"It's like Fury knows when I'm at my absolute busiest and says "Let's send Stark somewhere now since it's inconvenient for him,"" Tony growled, tossing his faceplate back and forth in his hands.

They'd been briefed on the mission a few hours ago and, from the sound of it, they'd be home by dinner. Tony had asked JARVIS to search for any hint of deception when Fury briefed them, but it sounded like the head spy wasn't up to any particular tricks this time. Little miracles, Tony supposed.

Like this morning, when Steve didn't say anything about last night. They just sat in silence for a few minutes before the blonde told him Fury wanted to see both of them sometime this morning and watched him as he walked away; Tony had felt his eyes.

It had been such a stupid decision, allowing himself to even lie in Steve's lap, much less fall asleep there. On the plus side, he hadn't had such a relaxing sleep since Christmas. But he knew he was sending mixed signals and his will to not just give in and do the Tony Stark thing and say "fuck it" was crumbling.

The old Tony Stark would have probably kissed Steve by now. Would have found a way to get him into bed by now. Would have already gotten bored and said goodbye.

The new Tony Stark, the one that was a team player and had fallen hopelessly in love with Steve, wasn't sure how to handle said super soldier. Luckily, the other man was being extremely patient. Actually, he wasn't sure if that was a luckily or not.

"Yeah, Tony, Fury lives to mess with you," Steve answered him, smiling from the other side of the quinjet.

"You say that like there's not at least an element of truth to it."

"Captain, Mr. Stark, we'll be in position in ten seconds. Captain, if you'd like to put on your parachute?" Steve smiled, standing and pulling up his cowl.

"I've always wanted to try skydiving," he said seemingly offhanded and Tony's eyebrows shot up.

"Steven Grant Rogers, if you think…"

"Come on, Tony, I thought you were all about style. Show me some!" And with that, Steve took a running start and jumped out the back of the jet. One of the agents on board came running from the front and saw the parachute lying on the ground, clearly not being used by one particular star-spangled superhero.

"Mr. Stark, was he wearing a parachute?" Tony smiled despite his irritation with the man in question.

"No. No he wasn't." He put his faceplate back on and followed Steve out as the agent shouted, "Why the hell not?"

 _Because he knows I'll catch him,_ Tony answered to himself, smiling as the suit locked onto Steve and he dropped a little below the super soldier, allowing himself to fall a bit after catching him to slow their momentum before getting a handle on the extra weight.

"Took you long enough," Steve laughed, face flushed in excitement and hands loosely (for him, anyway) gripping Tony's upper arms through the suit. Tony couldn't respond, too enthralled by how _beautiful_ Steve looked at that moment. His mask had flown back off from the wind during his fall, so Tony could clearly see his blue eyes, his wind-whipped hair, and the blinding smile that all just made Tony's heart beat way too fast to be safe.

It was a good thing he had his faceplate on or he might have done something really stupid like kiss the man and it all would have gone to hell…not that it wasn't already.

After all, between this, last night, and the conversation in the hospital (that he was pretty sure Steve thought he didn't remember but _how_ could he possibly forget) that had led to them holding each other all night, Tony knew he was one more heartfelt conversation with Steve away from telling him absolutely everything.

Starting with the truth.

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review! :)**


	8. We Got This?

**A/N:** Sorry for the serious amount of lag time - I did warn at the beginning this might happen though. Anyway, this is the second to last actual chapter. Also, I know February 14 isn't the actual anniversary of Howard and Maria's death, but I thought it worked well with the timeline of the story and I wanted an excuse to get the boys out together on Valentines.

 _Disclaimer:_ I own nothing. Literally, even the idea for the fic can technically be attributed to the fanvid, so all I own are the order in which I put the words :)

 _Rating:_ T mostly due to language and some content. I may still yet add a final scene in the next chapter that turns it to M, but if it happens there will be plenty of warning.

 _Warnings:_ In case you couldn't tell from the description, characters, genre, or author note, this is malexmale. If that bothers you, click away. Don't flame for something you knew from the beginning you wouldn't like!

 _Inspiration:_ Go to Youtube and search "Love Like Fools Stony ann2who". Ah-may-zing.

Enjoy!

* * *

 **What if we ruin it all**

 **And we love like fools**

 **And all we have we lose?**

* * *

Apparently 70 years had done absolute wonders for Steve's patience, because long after (like a full _month_ after) their mission together, Steve was still saying and doing little things that could probably be labeled as flirting, but he certainly didn't seem to mind not bringing up an actual conversation.

The man was a master in manipulation whether he knew it or not. If he'd tried to bring this up after that mission - the one where Tony very nearly lost his mind and kissed Steve mid-flight - Tony (probably) would have had enough willpower to turn Steve down and effectively end any conversation about it for at least a few months if not longer. Instead, by not bringing it up and by being completely oblivious about it, Steve was doing a pretty good job of breaking Tony down.

The thing was that not a lot changed between them. Sure, there was a little bit more sexual tension (mostly because Tony just really wanted to jump Steve but kept having to remind himself it was a bad idea...and then had to remind himself WHY it was a bad idea), but Steve still hung out down in the workshop, Tony was hours away from finishing the most badass suit ever, and the team was pretty much just rolling their eyes.

The movie fiasco happened about three more times, mostly when Tony was too tired to really monitor what he was doing. He didn't sit on the floor anymore; it was just assumed the couch was "Steve & Tony's". The rare nights that Tony wasn't out of his mind, he'd still sit pretty close. The more common ones where he was over 48 hours from his last sleep cycle usually found Steve carding fingers through his hair until he was fast asleep.

It wasn't like he hadn't seen every movie in his collection anyway.

"He's not going to bring it up," Bruce said offhandedly one day when, once again, they were working in the lab together. "And not for the reasons you think."

"Ok, Doctor Phil, we're actually going to have this conversation?" Tony didn't usually play stupid when Bruce wanted to have a conversation. Pepper, definitely. Fury, absolutely. Steve, sometimes. Bruce...never.

"One, don't call me Phil - the fact that we actually know someone named Phil makes that very not ok. Second, yes, we're going to do this. Not because I want to rock the boat, but because despite the lack of tension _between_ you and Steve? You're still very much on edge."

And just when had Banner gotten so good at reading him? Tony's lifelong "don't let anyone close" mantra had shattered irreparably upon the Avengers taking residence in their Tower, but that didn't mean he wasn't supposed to still be an impenetrable wall of badass mystery.

"So you're saying I can come off the edge because the conversation I think Steve is going to bring up is never going to happen?" Bruce shrugged.

"Not for a long while anyway. Why would it? Sexual relations aside, the two of you are already dating. I mean, when was the last time someone asked you to do something and you didn't think in terms of whether Steve was free or not?" _Son of a bitch._ "Steve's already got 75% of what he wants; he's too smart to say something right now when he knows waiting it out is the better option at getting the other 25%."

"Did you seriously just say 'sexual relations'?"

"Tony."

"What?" He didn't away from the display in front of him, absently sipping at his coffee and moving pieces where he wanted them. "Most of what you're telling me, I've already thought of multiple times in the last few weeks. Mostly in my most sleep-deprived of states."

"So all the time?" This time, Tony looked over his shoulder to throw a half-hearted glare at the other scientist.

"I've also come up with multiple ways to deal with the situation."

"All of which include fracturing the team somehow, if you've thought of the ones I figure you would." He didn't say anything; he didn't need to. Of course Bruce was right - picking up some random playbunny or forcing himself away from Steve would end so badly for everyone, they didn't even merit as valid ideas.

"Which leaves me where I am right now."

"Between Steve and insanity?" Tony took another sip of coffee but didn't say anything. What was there left to say. "I'm just saying out loud what you've already figured out; Steve's placed the ball firmly in your court. He's not the kind of guy that needs a label or anything that usually accompanies a relationship - and you already know this." He felt something hit his head and looked down to see one of the throw pillows from the couch laying by his feet.

"So stop looking like he's going to sideswipe you into a dark room and force you to reveal all your deep dark secrets. It's driving the rest of us nuts."

 _Not as nuts as it's driving me,_ Tony thought bitterly, going back to his screen.

STONY*STONY*STONY*STONY

Steve walked into the lab a few days after Tony and Bruce's conversation. With one look at the scene in front of him, he dropped his sketchbook on the nearby table and ran over to the genius who, he thought, was not being so genius at the moment.

"Tony, what in the hell are you doing?"

"Microbots!" He didn't look up from where he was injecting himself with said microbots at multiple points in his arm. Steve caught the telltale tightening of the fist that said the action hurt more than the man let on.

"Microbots...like, little robots?" Tony shrugged, releasing his self-made tourniquet drop and flexing his arm. As he moved to drop it on the table, Steve saw mirroring marks on the other arm. "You just finished getting the metal that's been in your chest for - what, five years? - out, and now you're putting more in?"

"Steve, this is completely different! It's totally safe - trust me!" Steve quirked an eyebrow, calmer now that he was (minorly) assured Tony hadn't lost his mind. "Ok, so my idea of safe and the average person's idea of safe usually don't sync up so well, but relax - this metal is in no way harmful...that I have discovered as of yet."

"Tony!" But the man waved him over to the side of the room with a dismissive gesture and made his way to the platform where he usually tested his suits. _Oh_. So Mark 42 was finally done then. "Are you testing the suit?"

"Maybe, if a certain super soldier stops berating me for putting together the final piece of it." Steve rolled his eyes, but took a seat as far out of the way as he could - he'd seen videos (courtesy of JARVIS) of the kind of damage these tests could do.

"Focus up, ladies!" The cameras flipped on and all focused in on Tony, who cleared his throat in typical dramatic-Stark fashion before continuing. "Good evening and welcome to the birthing suite. I am pleased to announce the imminent arrival of your bouncing badass baby brother. JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir."

"Drop my needle." Steve rolled his eyes when the record player next to him started blaring - couldn't he have just asked Steve to do it? But then he got distracted as Tony, who didn't seem to be able to contain his excitement - _like a kid in a candy store,_ Steve thought with a smile - started dancing on the platform. It wasn't purposefully obscene or anything, but the wiggle of his hips and the smooth movements definitely had Steve shifting in his seat a bit. Thank god Tony's eyes were closed.

It had been difficult not bringing it up with Tony the last few months. Nothing had really changed in their relationship - they still spent more time with each other than with anybody else, still got coffee or visited the occasional museum, still talked. Tony didn't seem to have as much of a problem with physical proximity anymore - he'd fallen asleep on Steve's lap during movie night more times than Steve bothered to count.

He knew there was something mentally holding Tony back, but he didn't want to push the issue. It was getting harder and harder when all he wanted was to pin Tony to a wall and kiss him until there wasn't enough of him mentally to even register, much less hold him back.

Tony's voice brought him back to the present.

"Mark 42 Autonomous Prehensile Propulsion Suit: initialize test sequence." Then he made a move that reminded Steve a bit of one of the karate movies Clint had made them watch...and nothing happened. Steve saw the furrow in his brows appear that meant something wasn't working.

He made the move again - still nothing.

"Dammit…"

"Yeah, Tony, totally safe…" Steve muttered when Tony bit himself in the wrist where the microbots had just been injected, hitting it a few times the way Natasha occasionally did to get the remote working.

This time, Steve heard the sound of the propulsion system firing up. He looked at the table across from him just in time to see a piece of the suit fly towards Tony, latching on and expanding to become a full gauntlet.

During one of his visits to the lab, Tony had walked Steve through a complete listing of every suit he'd made, including what the special aspects of each were. His favorite was probably the briefcase (although he didn't envy whoever had had to carry it around for him), but this one reminded him of the suit Tony had used after jumping out of the window of his Tower.

Except instead of bracelets, the man had seen fit to inject millions of tiny robots into his system.

Another piece flew over and attached itself to Tony, who was laughing at this point.

"Alright, I think we got this. Send 'em all!" And then, of course, everything went hilariously wrong. Pieces flew too fast - "alright, it's a little fast...can we...can we slow it - woah!" - and crashed into the glass casing behind him. He winced in sympathy when a particular piece came flying at a painful velocity towards...well, it looked like it hurt.

When (seemingly) all but one piece had assembled, Tony stood in his resplendent gold-and-red suit and Steve smiled - he could literally feel Tony's pride of months and months of work coming together into his best suit yet. When he heard the telltale sound, though, he didn't have time to yell a warning before the buttplate came crashing from behind, knocking the genius off his platform and scattering pieces of the not-yet-locked-together suit across the floor.

The faceplate came soaring at Steve's face and he caught it deftly from the air.

"Really, Tony? 'We got this'?" He laughed, holding a hand out for the bruised (body and ego) man and pulling him up.

"Famous last words?" Tony replied, wincing as he straightened fully, but not quite relinquishing his grip on Steve's arm. And for a moment, they were both still as the humor faded and just left a suspended air of _waiting._

"As always, sir, a great pleasure watching you work." JARVIS' voice broke the spell and caused Tony to give a quirky smile, releasing Steve's arm to brush himself off.

"I don't know where you learned sass, but you better be careful before I figure out how to make you unlearn it, J." They all knew he would do no such thing.

Steve handed the faceplate back to Tony with a smile, falling back into more familiar territory with a chuckle and, "It won't do that in the field, right? Because that could be a problem."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up, Rogers." The smile let him know Tony was still actually very amused, despite the failure to work perfectly on the first try. It was part of what Steve loved about the man.

"Come on, Tony. Let's go get some coffee before you let your suit kick your ass again."

STONY*STONY*STONY

Coffee turned into drinks when they exited the Tower and realized two things. First, Steve had apparently started losing track of time the same way Tony always had - it was actually well past nine at night. Second, it was apparently Valentines' Day, and if that wasn't a reason to drink (and a metaphorical punch in the gut), Tony didn't know what was.

Steve, predictably, chose to drink coffee - as he'd pointed out, neither one worked on him, so why drink something more expensive that he never really enjoyed the taste of.

Tony, on the other hand, made sure to take an extra shot every time he walked up to the bar to get them more drinks. It was pretty clear that Steve disapproved, but why did that matter? It's not like they were dating or anything…

And then Tony would take another shot.

Around the time the room started spinning, Tony became hyper-aware that this was a very bad idea. He hadn't actually drank anything since Christmas (he would insist this was because he was way too focused on his suit, but he knew the real reason - hanging out with Steve usually curbed the inherent need he had to drink).

"Any particular reason for the extra shots, Tony?" At least Steve looked amused - irritation and ( _fuck it all_ ) disappointment flickered below the surface, though.

"Multiple, actually. Which would you care to hear, Steve?" It was disconcerting having Steve's visible attention on him, Tony realized. Usually, he seemed slightly more focused on his sketching, which made him feel more relaxed. _Next time we go for coffee, no matter how drunk I want to get_ , Tony promised himself.

"I care to hear any reasons you want to share, Tony. And the ones you don't, but I won't make you tell me." Tony was silent for a little while longer, staring into his glass. He heard Steve sigh, meaning he probably didn't think Tony would share anything.

"I forgot it was Valentines' Day." Steve raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. "I don't usually forget. I mean, it's a stupid holiday, don't get me wrong - " he knocked back the rest of his cheap scotch (well, cheap to _him_ ) - "shouldn't we be eating chocolate every day of the year? What makes the dead middle of this frigid month so damn special?"

Still, Steve didn't interrupt. Pepper would have interrupted, and he could have gotten them off on a tangent and she would have left it alone by now. Tony wasn't sure if this was a reason to like Steve or not.

"Even when I've been working for days - _weeks!_ \- without stopping, I never forget this goddamn day...and I did this year." Tony sees the moment Steve understands - that twist of pity that Steve doesn't quite manage to get rid of that makes the urge to grab something stronger than scotch claw at Tony's stomach. He hates that look.

He hates it a little less on Steve's face. That doesn't stop him from looking away. Steve says something to the waitress walking by, but Tony doesn't lift his head until there's two more shots being set between them and a large, warm hand being placed over his own.

"It's not a crime to let it go long enough to be happy, Tony. You didn't forget them just because you forgot what today was. I know you think about them - maybe not all the time, but you certainly haven't forgotten them. So...how about a toast to Howard and Maria, and then we get back to the Tower and watch a movie?"

"No romantic comedies," Tony warned, picking up one of the shots and trying to hold it steady. Some of the amber liquid splashed onto the table and Steve's hand shot out to steady Tony's hand with his own. He finally let himself look Steve in the eyes and felt another punch to the gut at the blue eyes that were probably infinitely clearer than his own at the present.

He _loved_ Steve Rogers - why did anything else matter?

And then Steve let go of his hand and downed his own shot and Tony's mind cleared briefly enough to take his own as another though shot through his mind, though it didn't stick as hard as it usually did.

 _Because it did._

STONY*STONY*STONY*

Tony had driven to the bar, which Steve didn't completely understand considering they both knew who would be driving back, but he'd accepted it at the time. Now he was wishing he'd demanded the keys from Tony prior to walking in the bar, because now he had to figure out which of Tony's many pockets the keys were hiding in.

While Tony was draped over him, breathing and giggling lowly into Steve's ear. After their toast and exposure to the frigid February air, Tony's mood had shifted and now Steve was having difficulty focusing on his task.

"...asha seriously has it out for me. I mean, she's always so nice to you and…" And now Tony was rambling about various team members. Well, better than commenting on Steve's unintended friskiness. Not that Steve would mind, but definitely not in this scenario - he wanted them both very much sober. Giving up on the idea that Tony had put the keys in his jacket, Steve moved to check the front pockets of the billionaire's jeans.

"Steve." He knew it was a bad idea. He knew from the tone of voice what was going to happen and exactly why he shouldn't turn his head.

Which was why he did.

Tony threw himself into Steve's arms and despite Steve's mental insistence that this would not - _could not_ \- happen while Tony was drunk, he allowed Tony's lips to find his. It was a little awkward - Tony's coordination obviously wasn't top notch, but Steve didn't care. Because whatever Tony had been telling himself for these last few weeks (months!), Steve could tell exactly how the man felt.

He wasn't kissing like a man who wanted Steve to end up in his bed tonight (well, he _was,_ but Steve had a feeling that was just how Tony kissed). It felt like he was demanding and apologizing at the same time, like the first time that it was and the last time Steve hoped never came.

After only a few seconds (though it felt far shorter), Tony stumbled and Steve's arms moved to come around his waist. He held the man as against his chest as gently as he could, and slowly broke their lips apart. Tony leaned forward, searching his lips out, but Steve raised his lips to plant a soft kiss on Tony's forehead in a way so reminiscent of that time they stood in the kitchen and confessed everything.

"Not like this, Tony," he whispered. "I want you to remember in the morning and tell me you still want this."

"What if I don't remember," Tony mumbled, and if there were slight hitches in his voice that indicated the tears he was surely hiding, Steve didn't say anything.

"I'll still love you," he whispered, clutching the man close. Steve wasn't sure if he was more afraid that Tony wouldn't remember or that he would and it wouldn't change anything. "I'll still wait for you."

"Why?" As he asked, Steve felt the hand Tony had clutching his jacket open and heard the sound of metal hitting the asphalt - Tony had had the keys in his hands the whole time - of course.

Steve smiled.

"Because it's you, Tony. For me, it's always been you."

* * *

 **A/N: Please Review! :)**


	9. It's Always Been You

**A/N:** Welcome to the final chapter of Love Like Fools. I apologize for the time it took to finish this - I wanted to finish it before Civil War came out but a combination of writers block and unfortunate life circumstances prevented me from doing so, and I didn't want to slap together a crappy ending. I loved this story too much.

Thanks for anyone still reading; I know it took quite awhile.

 _Disclaimer:_ I don't own the Avengers, Tony, Steve, or anything Marvel. As always, check out 'Love Like Fools' by ann2who, the inspiration for this story.

Enjoy, and thanks for making it to the end!

* * *

 **And all we have we lose?  
And I don't want you to go but I want you so  
So tell me what  
Tell me what  
Tell me what we choose**

* * *

I am NEVER drinking again.

Tony's first thought when he awoke the next morning was fairly standard.

FUCK...I kissed Steve.

His second thought...not as standard. He groaned and covered his eyes with his arm in an effort to keep out both the light streaming through the open windows and his traitorous thoughts. Why were his windows open? JARVIS knew better than to have them open in the morning.

"I suppose I should be grateful I can't get drunk if it means I can avoid the hangover." The voice at the door made him sit straight up, but moments later his head was swirling and he felt sick. "Woah, Tony - slow down." There was a firm hand at his back and a wastebasket in front of him before he could blink.

"I don't get sick, Rogers," he muttered, halfheartedly shoving away at the wastebasket. He cursed when it fell into a glass of orange juice on a breakfast tray that had definitely not been in front of him thirty seconds ago.

"Shoot - sorry, Tony." Sorry? Tony was the one who had just knocked orange juice all over the toast, eggs, and his own bedspread. Why was Steve apologizing?

"What's with the breakfast in bed? You know it's not my birthday for another three months, right?" Steve shrugged, looking in no way like someone Tony had tried to drunk kiss last night. Tony wasn't sure if he should be thankful or affronted for that.

"Given the amount you drank last night, I wasn't sure how you'd be feeling this morning. Thought this might be an appropriate bribe." Bribe? Tony's confusion must have shown, because Steve raised an eyebrow and laughed. "Don't think you're getting out of it just because you're hungover. Although I can't believe you're actually already up; I thought I'd have to wake you when I brought your tray."

Tony was still stuck on trying to remember what the hell he'd agreed to that he couldn't remember. Then he caught sight of Steve's shirt. One of the presents he'd given him for Christmas - a Star Trek Next Gen tshirt that looked like a captain's uniform. He'd been delighted to find out Star Trek was one of the things from Steve's 'list' that he'd actually started watching and gotten him the shirt so he could be a 'Captain' even when he wasn't in the spangly suit.

"Oh...oh no. I didn't think you were serious, Rogers. Why?"

"Why not?"

"What do you mean why not? How about we'll never make it through the doors without being swarmed for one?" Steve looked thoroughly unconcerned, though. In fact, he looked entertained. Tony wanted to be indignant - there was no indication at all that the blonde man thought he wouldn't be getting his way, and Tony was hard-pressed to give him a reason to think otherwise.

"I thought you liked attention."

"Not when my head feels like I went ten rounds with a Chitauri death machine."

"Well then I'll grab you some Tylenol and a mask. But you promised and I've already held up my end of the deal, so let's get moving!"

STONY*STONY*STONY

Smiling was painful, Steve thought. Not physically - he'd learned off a Snapple cap that it actually took less muscles to smile than it did to frown - but emotionally.

He'd never witnessed Tony as absolutely off-the-wall hammered as he'd been last night. When Bucky and the other men he'd served with would get that drunk, they often forgot some of the more ridiculous things they'd ended up doing. He had no way of knowing if Tony even remembered what he'd done last night.

But Steve remembered. It was all he'd been thinking about since he safely deposited Tony in his bed, usually in cycles of cursing himself for letting Tony do it, cursing Tony for doing it, and fearing that it might be the first, last, and only time he'd feel Tony's lips pressed against his. He hadn't lied last night - if Tony didn't remember, he wouldn't hate him for it. He'd hate himself.

His mother had always told him that when he found the person he loved, to tell them everyday. She had always regretted not saying it more to his father before he died in the war. Now, he was torn between taking her advice, advice he so readily wanted to take, and not driving Tony away by making him uncomfortable.

And Tony hadn't given him any indication of remembering what happened last night beyond copious amounts of alcohol.

So they were back to normal, basically. Steve ignored the painful clench in his chest and went to the kitchen to make another plate while Tony got ready.

STONY*STONY*STONY

A few days after the mission where Steve had recklessly dove through the sky sans parachute, they had discovered a new World War II exhibit had been finished and opened, including a "new-and-improved" Captain America...shrine was the most appropriate word Tony could think of. His original uniform, a prototype of the famous shield, and his army uniform were predictably there, but so were mementos and interviews from his life before the war.

Tony had insisted on going, mostly because he wanted to see how red the Captain would get before demanding they leave. To the billionaire's surprise, he never did. Certain things had caused him to stop, unresponsive for quite awhile, before continuing on, but Tony never pushed him. He just waited for another opportunity to make a joke and get the man smiling again.

The price for Steve being willing to go see his so-called "shrine"? Tony was being forced to attend Steve's first ever Comic Con. Apparently, it was another thing on that damn list, and Tony wanted to painfully torture whoever had put it there.

But Steve had been right - he'd already paid his end of the deal, so Tony had forced himself out of bed, thrown on his cheapest (still designer) pair of jeans and his trusty Black Sabbath shirt, and clipped on the bracelets for the Mark 40. The pain in his lower back reminded him that he still had some bugs to work out with the 42.

Steve had eyed the bracelets as he walked out of his room but said nothing. After all, Cap didn't need his suit to fight, so shouldn't Tony be able to jump in (should the need arise...he hoped it wouldn't)?

Instead, he tried unsuccessfully to suppress a smile as he handed Tony a cheap plastic replica of one of his suits' face plates.

STONY*STONY*STONEY

There were a lot of people. Steve knew it wasn't possible, but it felt like all of New York was crowded into this space that felt too small. But the noise and heat generated from lots of people being in one space made him feel more comfortable than cold and silence, so he smiled and politely pushed through groups of guys and girls dressed in a variety of colored fabrics, plastics, and wigs. In fact, it seemed like he and Tony were invisible.

"It's because we're not dressed up," Tony explained quietly, keeping his head low so his baseball cap and hood covered his face. "People here are here because they love this stuff, but they all love different stuff, so it's easy to initiate contact over something superficial and obvious - like who they chose to dress as and how close they resemble their character. Or how creative they get," Tony ended with a bit of a choked noise. Steve followed his line of sight to see...them.

Or, rather, Iron Man and Captain America. The woman had a short blue dress with a striped red and white belt and a silver star on her chest. In her hand, she carried a small bag shaped like his shield, but much smaller, with a leash attached.

And attached to that leash was her service dog, dressed in full red and gold - his harness shone a reflective blue to match Iron Man's arc reactor. A yellow tag on his side indicated he was a service dog.

"Kind of like you and me," Steve laughed, throwing an arm around Tony's shoulders. "You lead me around this city all the time and get me used to things that I used to know, but seem so different now." He felt Tony's shoulders tense and relax as he explained - he knew Tony would have taken it the wrong way at first.

He waited for Tony to say something, but he didn't, and for awhile they just stood, looking at the girl who was smiling and simply content to stay where she was. The dog stood loyally at her side, taking in the sights around them but making no moves to take its owner somewhere else. Then Tony moved from under his arm; he was disappointed until he felt the other man grab his wrist and start pulling them in the girl's direction.

"Excuse me, Miss?"

"Emily," she said with a grin. "And you are?"

"Very impressed with the costumes, particularly the detail on your dog's." Steve gave Tony a sidelong glance; he didn't seem to be joking. In fact, he had a soft smile on his face as he spoke.

Steve saw the fingers of his right hand twitch, like he wanted to pet the dog that was dressed as him, but restrained.

"My mom's a costume designer for a small theater - nothing Broadway-size or anything - but she altered my prom dress and made a costume for Stark." Tony's jaw ticked, like he was holding in a laugh.

"Stark?"

"Yeah, I haven't been blind very long. And a few months ago, you remember that random robot that started tearing up the city?" Both men froze, but the girl continued. "Well I didn't have a service dog yet so my mom was going everywhere with me. But that day I told her I wanted to try and spend a few hours on my own - nothing big, just two or three hours at Starbucks to prove I didn't need someone to be with me every minute. And...oh," she paused, looking incredibly dismayed. "I'm sorry. You only came over to compliment my costume and I'm taking up all your time."

"No, please. I love a good story, especially if the Avengers are involved," Steve interjected, wanting to hear the end. He remembered that day too well; he remembered waiting - praying - that Tony would wake up and be fine." Emily tilted her head, like she could discern the truth in his words from tone alone. She probably could.

"Well, I guess Iron Man's suit got damaged, because he came into the Starbucks and was freaking out about trying to help the team. And since he's a genius," Steve rolled his eyes at Tony's smirk, "he must have figured something out because two minutes later he grabbed my laptop and told me to bill him. So I did - I mean, my mom contacted the Stark Industries PR or customer service or something and explained everything. And when they had validated everything, they sent me the money for a new laptop - except it was WAY too much. And I'd told them what kind of laptop I'd had and told them it was too much but they said something about emotional damage and lost work and that it was Mr. Stark's policy. So we used it to pay off all of my medical bills, which was why my mom had been working two jobs.

"Anyway, about a week after that, we were called by a woman at Guide Dogs for America who said they had three dogs who were about to complete training and asked if I wanted to come meet them since one would be mine. His name was Stark and it seemed like a sign - after the Stark saving us in the coffee shop, and then giving us the money for my mom and me to get both our lives back - so I told her I wanted him."

As Emily spoke, Steve stared at Tony. It was clear the man wasn't sure how to react, which Steve found odd. Usually Tony loved playing the hero and telling his many fans how very welcome they were.

This Tony - this was the Tony he'd seen when a team member was injured. When Pepper had gotten a terrible round of the flu and Tony had spent an extra three days awake in the lab, constantly asking JARVIS how she was.

This was the Tony that looked at a problem he couldn't solve and hated that something had bested him, even if it was nature. He laid a hand on Tony's shoulder and watched the emotions flicker over his face for a moment before settling.

"Sorry about breaking your laptop," he said with a grin, waiting for Emily to catch on. It didn't take her long - she'd probably already had it figured out. She'd heard his voice that day, after all.

"Sorry about your suit," she smiled. "And thanks for paying when I sent the bill." Steve watched as Tony took a selfie (he refused to let Steve touch his phone after the last time - why did he make the darn things so thin?) with Emily and sent it to her to show her mom.

"So that policy of yours?" He asked when they had said their goodbyes and wandered away.

"Once legal has validated something like that, I make it a policy of covering them for what they need." Tony was picking at the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve, making eye contact with the floor. "Legal probably saw she had medical bills and, even though they were unrelated to the incident, they saw fit to give them enough to cover the rest in addition to the laptop. I set up a budget for them and a small group that is supposed to act as they believe I would want them to act, which is using the budget in whatever way will put some of these people back together again." The thread he was toying with snapped off as he wound it too tight.

Steve placed his hand over Tony's wrist to stop him from pulling again. He knew Tony was thinking about the fact that he'd taken care of their medical bills, but couldn't fix her medical problems.

"Tony…"

"Let's go, Rogers. Maybe we can find a group dressed as the whole gang."

"Tony." He planted himself and his grip on Tony forced the other man to stop as well. "You can't save everyone, and you can't fix everything. But you do a pretty damn good job with what is within your abilities, so don't worry so much about the things that aren't."

"Some days it feels like nothing is," Tony mumbled, pulling his hands over the back of his neck to attempt to release some tension. Steve wasn't sure if he was talking about being a genius, a superhero, or dealing with Steve.

STONY*STONY*STONY

Tony still wasn't really sure why Steve had wanted to go. He had only seen maybe two or three of the hundreds of things being represented. They stopped to look at various comic books, Tony because he enjoyed reminiscing and Steve because he loved the art.

"Do you think someone will make comics about us?" Steve had asked while paging through a random comic.

"Steve, I think someone will make movies about us, and I'll be an overly sarcastic asshat and you'll be an overly perfect idealist and we'll simultaneously love and hate each other."

"So the characters will be spot on, then?" Tony threw him a look that, while obscured by the glasses and hat, Steve could probably see as well as if he hadn't been wearing any of that.

As Tony had predicted, no one recognized them and they didn't make a habit of engaging with many other people as they had Emily. And, as with most of their usual outings, they didn't make a lot of meaningless conversation; Steve would occasionally ask a question that Tony would answer, but otherwise, they just walked side by side enjoying the dedication of the fans.

Which gave Tony plenty of time to think about the prior night.

Most of it was dulled. He remembered everything, but not as well as he'd prefer. If he'd been sober, he was certain kissing Steve would be like fighting in the suit - everything would have been sharp, his adrenaline heightened, and he would have noticed Steve's every small movement and how he responded. As it was, all he knew was he'd kissed him. And that Steve, the perfect gentleman, had said something about Tony not being drunk next time.

Next time. There wasn't going to be a next time...was there? He scowled; the hangover was messing with his head.

But then he looked at Steve in his Star Trek shirt and his brown jacket and his stupid perfect teeth and decided no - Steve was messing with his head. Steve had been right; neither one of them would ever be more or less distracted in battle (or in general) by being with each other. How could he ever be more distracted than he was nowadays?

And he realized Bruce had been right. Natasha had been right. If he was waiting for some grand gesture that would force him to either completely reject or accept the relationship he and Steve already essentially seemed to have, he'd be waiting a long time. Steve's patience and Tony's avoidance capability would see to that.

So what was he waiting for?

STONY*STONY*STONY

Unlike their usual casual silences where he could feel Tony thinking about things like suit upgrades or things for SI, Steve could tell something was bothering Tony. But if the genius wanted to talk, he'd talk; Steve wouldn't force him to talk about anything uncomfortable in such a public place.

Back in the car would be a different story.

But Steve's brain short-circuited when he felt a calloused hand twine with his own. Now they were getting a few more glances than usual, but most of them were "aw, how sweet" glances. Not that Steve noticed; he was barely able to keep walking.

"Window or door?" Steve shook his head and realized Tony had asked him a question.

"What?"

"Window or door? The side of the bed you prefer to sleep on - is it closer to the window or the door?"

"Door, I guess. Why?"

"Oh, good - I prefer the window, and that could have been difficult to sort out." Sort out. Tony was talking about sharing a bed like it was something that needed to be sorted out. Was it?

"Tony, is there something you - "

"Oh my god, it's Tony Stark! It's Iron Man!" No sooner had Steve heard Tony's name than he felt the baseball cap being pushed over his head, the brim being pulled low, and Tony's hand pulling him faster, the bracelets on his wrist already beeping.

"Cover's blown - sorry, Rogers. We'll have to finish this back at the Tower."

Steve heard it before he saw it - the giant pack of red and gold rocketing through the air, the AI and sensors controlling it steering clear of any people, but having no problem flying through the glass doors or vendor stands. Tony let go of his hand while the armor took hold, but grabbed him again shortly after, flying them through the already broken door with a yell of "Bill me!" echoing behind them.

Once they were safely in the air (safely being a debateable word, since they weren't exactly unsafe surrounded by Iron Man's adoring fans), Steve chided Tony, "Was that really necessary?"

"Hey, everyone knows who I am and what I look like. Your face is still, somehow, up for debate. Do you want to be swarmed when you go to the coffee shop?"

"You're not."

"I was famous before I was Iron Man. People are sick of my shit already," Tony laughed, angling them back towards the Tower's landing pad. "You're still bright and shiny and perfect for screaming teenagers at a coffeeshop." Steve rolled his eyes, but didn't respond. Their conversation earlier was almost forgotten in the uproar - almost, but not quite.

Through the glass of the penthouse, Steve could see Natasha and Clint watching something on the TV. Well, Nat was cleaning her guns, but Clint was watching the TV. They both glanced back at the landing pad as Tony set them down, but turned back to what they were doing shortly after.

When the suit was off, Steve was still standing awkwardly, not quite sure if he should turn and join the super assassins or if Tony was expecting anything. But Tony answered the question for him when he held out his hand with a soft smile.

"You're thinking too hard, Rogers. What's happening in that head of yours?" Steve cocked his head, looking for any sign of indecision in Tony's eyes, but there was none - just that same assuredness he'd had when he told Steve to come live with him all those months ago. Like he'd made a decision and there was nothing that would change his mind.

"You're going to say I'm being mushy and ridiculous." Tony smirked as Steve finally took the proffered hand.

"You're being mushy and ridiculous. There - now that I've said it, you've got no reason not to."

"It's just...why now?" The shorter man slid his free hand behind Steve's neck and pulled the stunned super soldier the few inches it took to make their lips meet.

After the few seconds it took Steve to get his wits back together, he wrapped his own free arm around Tony's waist and pulled him in closer. Last night, he'd been reluctantly forcing Tony off of him, uncomfortable with Tony only be willing to express his emotions while drunk.

Now, he wanted Tony as close as possible, and then closer. Tony's mouth opened against his and Steve realized very quickly how extraordinarily outmatched he was when it came to experience, but he made up for it in enthusiasm. The hand on his neck slid into his hair and gave a small tug that forced them to separate and Steve realized Tony apparently needed air a little sooner than he did.

He rested his forehead against Tony's, giving him a moment to catch his breath before losing his own at the sight of Tony's smile. Not a smirk - his actual smile.

"Because it's you, Steve. For me, it's always been you."

* * *

 **A/N:** Thanks again for sticking with me to the end! I love reviews and I love all you wonderful readers! 3


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